IEA is pleased to announce that Dr. Abdalla Ababneh, Ms. Mary Coleman, and Ms. Carmen Tovar Sánchez were elected to the IEA Standing Committee at the 65th IEA General Assembly meeting sessions held in Tbilisi, Georgia, between 28 September–03 October 2024.
The IEA SC (Standing Committee) consists of the IEA Chair and six General Assembly representatives. The committee serves as a board of directors for both IEA and the IEA Secretariat.
Dr. Ababneh, Ms. Coleman, and Ms. Tovar Sánchez will replace Ms. Isabelle Erauw, Ms. Sophia Gorgodze, and Dr. Stephen Provasnik, who IEA warmly thanks for their invaluable contributions to the SC over the past years.
Dr. Ababneh is the President of the National Center for Human Resources Development and has over 40 years of experience as a teacher. Dr. Ababneh has served in a wealth of roles in Jordan and in the United Arab Emirates State. He has published referee articles and textbooks in mathematics education and has also supervised national policy-oriented research regarding the “gap between the supply and demand for the economic sectors in Jordan.” Dr. Ababneh serves as General Secretary for the Scientific Association for all the National Centers for Humans Resources Development in the Arab World affiliated under the Federation of Arabs Scientific Research Councils.
Ms. Mary Coleman currently serves as Branch Chief for International Assessments at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education, managing six major international educational assessments and surveys. Before this role, she was a Senior Education Research Scientist at NCES, where she contributed to survey methodology and represented the U.S. in international educational bodies. Earlier, as Principal Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), she managed quick-response educational surveys for NCES and developed new survey instruments. She also led initiatives at AIR to enhance student engagement measures and teacher knowledge surveys and contributed to the OECD’s DeSeCo program focused on defining essential 21st-century competencies.
Ms. Carmen Tovar Sánchez is the Director of National Institute for Educational Assessment, unit of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sport which is responsible for the evaluation at a national and international level of the Spanish educational system. She is also the Director of the Journal of Education, quarterly scientific publication of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Vocational Training, and Sport. She is the vice chair of the PISA Governing Board and a member of the Governing Council of the Institute of Assessment of the Organization of Ibero-American States.
Dr. Abdalla Ababneh, Ms. Mary Coleman, and Ms. Carmen Tovar Sánchez will join current IEA Standing Committee members (see photo from left to right) Dr. Abdalla Ababneh, Dr. Maria Axelsson, Dr. Christian Christrup Kjeldsen, Ms. Mary Coleman, Ms. Carmen Tovar Sánchez, Dr. Michal Sitek.
Not pictured and serves on the Standing Commitee, Mr. Barclay Anstiss.