Our Team of Professionals


BOARD

Sylvia Higashi, Chair

Associate Attorney, Kessner Duca Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga

Ms. Higashi served as an Admissions Specialist, Assistant Dean and Program Specialist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa before retiring after 28 years of service. Currently she is an Associate with the law firm of Kessner Duca Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga and serves on the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline and the University of Hawaii Federal Credit Union. Ms. Higashi holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Education in Secondary Education and a Juris Doctor from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She co-authored a law review article on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Gender Discrimination, edited the AACRAO publication: Guide for International Admissions and Evaluation Officers, and co-edited the PIER volume on The Educational System of the United Kingdom, The Admissions and Placement of Students from the United Kingdom and Study Abroad Opportunities.

Thomas M. Andersen, Treasurer

Principal, Rothstein Kass & Company, P.C.

Mr. Andersen is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University and attended the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. He has served the accounting profession for close to forty years and has authored several articles on taxation. Mr. Andersen is a frequent speaker and has extensively given lectures for organizations such as the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the National Institute of Farm and Land Brokers, the National Association of Accountants, California State University, Northridge, the University of Southern California, and the California Society of CPAs. Mr. Andersen is a member of the International Fiscal Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA), where he has served on various local and state committees. He has also served as President of the Beverly Hills Estate Planning Council. Mr. Andersen has been actively involved with the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and formerly served as treasurer and board member.

Karen Jenkins, Secretary

President, Brethren Colleges Abroad

Ms. Jenkins holds a Juris Doctor from Rutgers University Law School and a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. She has taught at Dickinson College, St. Olaf College, School for International Training (Vermont), and the University of Zambia. Ms. Jenkins previously served as the Associate Dean of the College and Director of International Education at Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA), as the first Vice President for Institutional Advancement at the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Studies in International Education. Ms. Jenkins formerly held the position of Director of International & Off-Campus Studies and International Students & Scholars at St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN). She has served as a member of the board of directors of Scandinavian Seminar, The Council on International Educational Exchange, and Minnesota International Health Volunteers. Ms. Jenkins is currently the president of Brethren Colleges Abroad, a consortium of institutions of higher education that operates academic study centers around the world for hundreds of students as well as related international programs for faculty.

Inez Sepmeyer

President Emerita

One of the co-founders of IERF, Ms. Sepmeyer was Admissions Officer for International Students at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1953 to 1977. She is a distinguished member of AACRAO, PACRAO, and NAFSA and has served on several committees within these organizations. She has authored books on educational systems, co-authoring the pioneering volume on The Educational Systems of Africa. She is the editor of The Country Index.

Gary A. Best

Retired. Formerly Associate Director of Teacher Education and Public School Programs, California State University

Dr. Best retired from the California State University in 2002. He was a professor of special education at California State University, Los Angeles for 30 years, where he also served in a variety of administrative capacities including Department Chair, Associate Dean of the Charter College of Education, and Interim University Dean for Graduate Studies and Research. His last assignment was as Associate Director of Teacher Education and Public School Programs at the Chancellor’s Office of the California State University system. His doctorate is from the University of Minnesota and his scholarly work has been in the area of physical disabilities with a specialization in sex education of persons with exceptionalities. He is widely published in these areas as well as in faculty development and fund raising in higher education. Dr. Best has traveled throughout Europe and Asia and has made professional presentations in Pakistan, Scotland, Canada, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Taiwan, where he served as a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 1991. In addition, he has an extensive background in teacher preparation, credential development and accreditation, and in training grant development and implementation.

STAFF

Susan J. Bedil

Executive Director

Susan is from Johannesburg, South Africa and has over 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors of higher education. Susan was one of the founders of both the Midrand Campus Group in 1990 and Educor (Education Investment Corporation), the largest private education group in southern Africa, in 1996. Susan has held numerous academic and management positions within the Midrand Campus Group, such as Lecturer, Director of Studies and Chief Executive Officer.

Prior to 1990, Susan held a full-time position as lecturer in the school of law at the University of Witwatersrand. Most recently, Sue has served as Education Management Advisor to Educor. In this principal consulting role, she provided advice on developments and trends in private and public higher education, Department of Education, and state regulatory issues.

Susan's academic credentials include the Baccalareus Procurationis (BProc) cum laude from University of Witwatersrand. Susan has published and presented numerous papers, amongst others on education, the rights of the child and the handicapped, both in South Africa and abroad. She has served in various capacities (Executive Director, Non-Executive Director and Chairman) on many educational and other boards (non-profit organizations, private for profit companies, as well as on the board of the publicly traded Educor). She has a special interest in and has been involved in numerous community outreach projects.

Karlene N. Dickey

IERF Country Index Project Director
Retired. Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Emerita, Stanford University

Karlene worked at Stanford University for twenty-one years. She was responsible for graduate admissions (both U.S. and international), graduate financial support, and graduate degree progress. She has served on many national and international boards, including AACRAO (Vice President for International Education and Group II Chair), NAFSA (ADSEC chair), the Council on the Evaluation of Foreign Educational Credentials, (Chair), TOEFL Policy Board (member), National Council on Graduate Studies (member), TRACE/TransRegional Association for Credential Evaluation (Co-Founder and Chair), Western Association of Graduate Schools (member), and IERF Board (Chair). She is the author of a number of publications in the field of international education: World Education Series volume on Switzerland, PIER Special Report (with Karen Lukas) on Swiss Higher Schools of Engineering and Swiss Higher Schools of Economics and Business Administration, PIER World Education Series country reports on Denmark (with Valerie Woolston), Sweden (with Kathleen Zanotti) and Norway (with Shelley Feagles). She led the PIER Workshop on Hungary and Yugoslavia and wrote the reports on both countries with Desmond Bevis. She also wrote the PIER World Education Series Working Paper on Slovenia. In addition, she monitored the PIER World Education Series Report on Austria and the one on Vietnam. Karlene was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by AACRAO and the Cuthbertson Award for outstanding administrative personnel from Stanford University.

Emily K. Tse

Manager of Evaluations

Emily received a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from the University of Pennsylvania. Afterwards, she lived in England for two years, where she earned a Master of Philosophy in Classics from Cambridge University. Besides ancient Greek and Latin, she has studied Sanskrit, German, French, and Spanish. She has traveled throughout Europe and also visited parts of Asia, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India. She has published research on forgeries and spurious works and has also taught statistics at the college level, both in England and the United States.

Maxine McCarty

Chair of the Review Committee and Senior Evaluator - Specialist

Maxine has over 36 years of credentials evaluation experience. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from UCLA and is a/b/d in History from the same institution. She has worked as an international credentials evaluator in the undergraduate and graduate admissions offices at UCLA and was Assistant Director of International Admissions at USC. She was also Dean for Academic Affairs and Assistant Provost at West Coast University, where, in addition to other responsibilities, she was in charge of articulation with AACSB and ABET and coordinated the University team for WASC accreditation visits.

She is the former Chair of the Study Abroad Committee for AACRAO and a NAFSA member of the National Council on the Evaluation of Foreign Education Credentials. She served as monitor for the World Education Series volume on Southern Africa and is the co-author of ECE Presents the Educational System of Spain. She has extensive knowledge of the U.S. and world educational systems and is a specialist in comparative education and Francophone education. She is currently working on AACRAO Country Guide volumes on Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Somalia, and Madagascar.

Tami Balidio

Senior Evaluator - Specialist

Tami, who has been with IERF for over 21 years, received her Associate of Arts degree from Santa Monica College and completed further studies at the University of Southern California. She has extensive knowledge of world educational systems and is an expert on education in Vietnam, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. She also specializes in the educational systems of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Tami is fluent in Vietnamese.

Vladimir Foonberg

Senior Evaluator - Specialist

Vladimir holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the California State University, Northridge. He was born in the Ukraine and spent his adolescence in Brazil. He is fluent in Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and English. Vladimir has been a part of the evaluation and translation community since 1990, presenting at national and regional conferences of NAFSA and AACRAO.

Carole Khoury

Senior Evaluator

Carole holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University and a Master of Arts in Psychology from Pepperdine University. She is a native of Lebanon and has lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for fifteen years. She is fluent in Arabic and French and conversant in Spanish. She has traveled extensively within the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

I-Hsing Lin

Senior Evaluator

I-Hsing has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Japanese from Soochow University in Taiwan and a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics from California State University, Northridge. While at CSUN, she worked at the university's ESL program as a student advisor, assisting international students with issues related to the U.S. educational system and culture. She also taught English conversation at CSUN and Japanese at Santa Monica College. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese.

Bon Agapin

Evaluator

Bon has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, with a concentration in International Relations and a minor in German, from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has studied abroad in both Hungary and Germany. He has traveled throughout Europe and North America and parts of Asia, North Africa and South America. Bon is conversant in Pilipino, Spanish, German and Hungarian and has studied Russian and Mandarin Chinese. His hobbies include Javanese Gamelan music and Bharata Natyam, a South Indian classical dance.

Cindy Ahlholm

Specialist Physical Therapy Evaluator

Cindy received her Master of Science degree in Physical Therapy from Columbia University in 1993. She worked in New York for 3 years in pediatrics, acute care and orthopedics. Cindy went on to work in a variety of settings in New Mexico, Arizona, and Hawaii. She became a Board Certified Specialist in Orthopedic Physical Therapy in 2000. Currently, Cindy is Assistant Director at Kern & Associates Physical Therapy, a private orthopedic clinic in Santa Monica, California. She has been accepted into the Kaiser-LA Manual Therapy Fellowship for 2004.

Alvira Chernichovski

Evaluator

Alvira earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in History and Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a native of the former Soviet Union and received her primary education in Israel. She is fluent in Hebrew and conversant in Russian.

Gunnar Danell

Evaluator

Gunnar was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He attended the University of Stockholm and the University of Uppsala in Sweden, where he studied Political Science and Religious Studies and earned the Filosofie Kandidatexamen (Bachelor of Arts in Political Science). He also spent one semester in Iceland at the University of Reykjavík as an exchange student. He has traveled extensively within Europe and has also spent time in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the western United States. He is fluent in English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and German. He is also familiar with Spanish, Icelandic and Korean.

Alvin Yin

Evaluator

Alvin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, with double majors in Asian Studies and Law and Society, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Juris Doctor degree, with a specialty in International Law, from Golden Gate University School of Law. He received his primary education and early secondary education in Hong Kong. Alvin is fluent in both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. While pursuing his post-secondary education, he interned at an immigration law office, where he served as a Chinese interpreter and translator, assisted in legal research, and drafted legal motions.

Shannon E. Perry

Nursing Consultant

Dr. Shannon E. Perry (RN, Ph.D., FAAN) is Professor Emerita at the School of Nursing, San Francisco State University. She received her doctorate in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Child Development from Arizona State University, and was subsequently a post-doctoral fellow in Perinatal Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Perry was also a visiting fellow at the Department of Nursing Studies of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and has led groups of students on educational trips and courses in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Ghana, Italy and Thailand. Dr. Perry previously served as Coordinator of the Child and Adolescent Development Program in the Marian Wright Edelman Institute and as Director of the School of Nursing at San Francisco State University. She has also lectured at colleges, universities and nursing schools and served as a nurse in hospitals in as many as seven states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin). She is licensed as a registered nurse in these states. Having done extensive research in the field, Dr. Perry has presented papers nationally and internationally and published numerous articles, which have appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Nursing, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, Journal of Nursing Administration and Journal of Nursing Education. Moreover, she has co-edited three nursing textbooks. Exceptionally active in the profession, Dr. Perry has served on committees for organizations such as the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Nurses' Association, the American Academy of Nursing, the National League for Nursing, and the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission.

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