Faculty Fellows Program

The Division of Global Affairs has developed the Faculty Fellows Program to engage KSU faculty in areas that are of importance to the KSU community and have both local and international impact. In collaboration with faculty members from multiple colleges and disciplines, through focused research and analysis, the Faculty Fellows Program seeks to create new opportunities for community engagement, campus internationalization and professional development.

Team Members

• M. Todd Harper, PhD. 
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    Faculty Fellow, Annual Year of Country Study

    M. Todd Harper, PhD, is an Associate Professor of English.  He has been at Kennesaw State University since 1998, having arrived from the University of Louisville where he completed his doctorate.  In 2003, Dr. Harper became the first faculty member to receive a traditional Fulbright-Hayes Grant.  Dr. Harper taught and researched for five months at Ionian University on the island of Corfu, Greece. In 2005, he was awarded a Rotary Grant to teach a semester at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.  Since then, Dr. Harper has been involved in a number of KSU international initiatives, most notably directing study abroad programs to Greece and Italy.  As of 2020, Dr. Harper has led over 14 programs to Montepulciano, Italy, alone. This year, Dr. Harper is excited to become the Faculty Fellow for the Annual Year of Country Study.

     
• Ali Keyvanfar, PhD.
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    Faculty Fellow, Sustainable Devleopment Goals

    Ali Keyvanfar, PhD, is a full-time faculty, also a member of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Kennesaw State University (KSU). He has received the Korean World Scientific Award in Material science in 2016. He is an experienced academician, R&D project manager, start-up investment advisor, and international professional consultant with close to ten years of record in sustainable construction engineering and management (by method and material) in Malaysia, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, Bahrain, Nigeria, Ecuador, and the United States.
• Ken Hill
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    Faculty Fellow, Montepulciano, Italy

    Ken Hill is a Senior Lecturer of Management. He came to Kennesaw State University in 2002 in conjunction with a 20-year career that included Operations Management, Organizational Training and Development, and Human Resources. He completed his master's degree in Education and Human Development from The George Washington University in 1993. In 2007, Hill accepted a position as full-time instructor teaching in University College and the Honors College with the President's Emerging Global Scholars program. During that time, he developed international relationships in Salvador, Brazil and San Jose, Costa Rica while researching and studying a variety of global challenges in collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. Hill became the manager of KSU's Educational Site in Montepulciano, Italy in 2016. He has lived and worked there on behalf of the university for the last four years. Recently, Hill was pleased to be accepted the role of Italian Faculty Fellow with the Division of Global Affairs while his academic home is with Coles College of Business in the Levin School of Management, Entrepreneurship and Hospitality.
• Amanda Richey, PhD.
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    Faculty Fellow, Women's Leadership

    Amanda B. Richey, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of TESOL in the Inclusive Education Department at Kennesaw State University. She served as the Director of Global Engagement for the Bagwell College of Education from 2018-2020. During that time, she directed the international student teaching program for students in their yearling clinical teaching experience. Currently, Dr. Richey currently teaches in the graduate TESOL programs. Richey’s research has focused on the intersection of language education, culture, narrative, and curriculum, with a particular interest in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, the experience of Muslim families and faith communities in the U.S., and the representation of Muslims and Islam in official school curricula. An example of this work is the co-written article “Orientalism(s), world geography, and temporal paradox: questioning representations of Southwest Asia and North Africa” in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Additionally, she has published in the areas of women’s literacies and educational experiences and has worked recently with international colleagues on issues of women’s leadership. Her co-edited book (with Linda Evans) Mothering and Literacies, explores the intersections of culture, motherhood, and literacy practices in multicultural, multilingual contexts.

     

    Richey has published and delivered workshops on the topic of Islamophobia and education in many different contexts. As a Fulbright Scholar to Jordan during the 2014-15 academic year, Richey taught English teaching methods and other applied linguistics courses in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan and worked at with the program, Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins teaching EFL and education pedagogy to adult refugee students. Richey has an extensive background in narrative inquiry and oral history interviewing and has recently published a co-written chapter and article on transforming teacher collaboration to include approaches to oral history and community asset-mapping.

     
• Theresa Alviar-Martin, PhD.
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    Faculty Fellow, International Support

    Theresa Alviar-Martin, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education. Originally from the Philippines, Theresa’s transnational career experience began when she worked as an ESOL teacher in a refugee camp in Bataan; and as a primary teacher in internationals schools in Manila, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. She held appointments as assistant professor at the National Institute of Education (NIE Singapore) and the Education University of Hong Kong (formerly Hong Kong Institute of Education) prior to joining KSU. She is a member of the KSU Presidential Commission on Race and Ethnic Dialogue and serves on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Annual Country Studies Program. Theresa’s research examines citizenship education in culturally diverse democracies from global and comparative perspectives. She is an editorial board member of Theory and Research in Social Education. Her scholarship has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Teaching and Teacher Education, Teachers College Record, and Journal of Educational Research.
• Monica Nandan, PhD.
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    Faculty Fellow, Social Entrepreneurship

    Monica Nandan is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Social Impact for the WellStar College of Health and Human Services, and Professor of Social Work at Kennesaw State University.  She received her Ph.D. from Florida State University and also holds an MSW, MBA in Finance, and MBA in Health Care Administration.  She has been in academic leadership roles for eight years, has served the community in various capacities, and has published (journal articles, book chapters, and a book) in diverse fields of social innovation and entrepreneurship, design thinking, interprofessional education, cross-sector alliances, gerontology, and health care. She co-edited a book titled “Social Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship and Social Value Creation: Relevance for Contemporary Social Work Practice” Washington, DC: NASW Press. Recently she received four grants (over $230,000) from the Georgia Department of Public Health, Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, Cobb District Attorney’s Office and Solan Family for implementing innovative community projects.