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Sam Shlansky is a Melbourne based Indonesian speaker working with diverse communities.
Since joining Scouts as a 6-year-old new Australian in Warrnambool, he has been inspired to connect people. By age 12, he was leading activities and finding his purpose in the community. At school, Sam kept finding ways to advocate for his peers and enrich the learning experience for all. By the time he graduated Sam was awarded Warrnambool City Council’s Youth Achiever of the Year. Being 1 of 33% of country kids to finish year 12 gave him little idea of what was ahead in Melbourne. Sam graduated from Monash with a Bachelor of Arts (Indonesian and Linguistics) with Honours. His research focused on learning Indonesian as a second language using smartphone apps. He helped gather international students in exciting get togethers that fired cross-cultural chats about the pains and gains of making the bold shift to Melbourne.
This international student connection stuck. Sam has studied in Indonesia twice, plus joined the selective AIYEP government initiative based there. He implemented community development projects with Indonesian rural societies- which requires compassion, curiosity and a love for dark sweet coffee. Through these journeys, he has developed admiration for the resilience that international students must develop.
Sam has continued to be inspired by all this- he has spent 5 years developing strong Australia-Indonesia relations. With the Australia-Indonesia Youth Association (AIYA), he has led in various roles with the Victoria Chapter; and as part of the national guiding body he now serves as Director of Partnerships and Memberships. This role provides the opportunity to create broad lasting relationships that increase the value of AIYA for its members.
In 2017, Sam studied the RMIT Diploma of Youth Work and completed more than 240 hours of volunteer work. He supported migrants and refugees through the Centre for Multicultural Youth, provided crisis care with the Salvation Army and continued facilitating with Scouts Australia. More recently, Sam joined the Marco Polo Project as associate designer, working on Out of The Box and Language Connector, experiential learning workshops helping international students build emotional and cognitive resilience in unfamiliar and ambiguous settings. He represents the Krakatoas SC, an Indonesian-Australian AFL club based in Melbourne. Through these activities, Sam is supporting young people to re-imagine their place in the world to fulfil their passions.
Read Sam’s contributions to this site here.
I am a Saudi female doctoral student who is a member of a family that has always encouraged learning, and always shown openness to other civilisations and cultures.
I studied the English language and literature (Shakespeare! Dickens! The Brontës!) for my first degree, and in 2008 I was awarded a King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) scholarship to complete a Master’s, then a PhD, in Melbourne, Australia. As part of my Masters degree, I investigated the use of Facebook by five Saudi Female International Students (SFIS) in Melbourne (Binsahl & Chang, 2012) and discovered that SFIS used social media to find information, not just to socialise.
Haifa’s comment on her experience as a student can be read here
Myra Lee is interested in the internationalisation of higher education, and in particular, culturally appropriate support during career transitions. Having studied in three countries, she utilises her lived experiences as a former international student to investigate the impact of transitioning through different cultural contexts on notions of career. Her other research interests include indigenous and postcolonial methodologies, reflective research praxis, and the future of work. Before embarking on research, Myra spent over a decade working in international corporations in roles such as accounting, recruitment, training and delivery design, and organisational development. A common theme underlying her career is the focus on lifelong learning as the basis for developing human potential, which is an ethos that she carries into her research.
Myra’s PhD thesis is entitled Journeying to the West: understanding international career transitions to develop career support for international Chinese doctoral research students in Australia and is available here
Read about Myra’s support tool here.
Sherrie Lee is from Singapore and a PhD candidate at the University of Waikato. She is the past president of the Postgraduate Students’ Association and currently serves as its mentor. She is also on the executive of International Education Association ISANA New Zealand. Her research uses the concept of brokering to investigate the informal learning practices among first year international tertiary students in New Zealand. Prior to doctoral studies, Sherrie was a business communications lecturer at a polytechnic in Singapore. She writes about her research interests on her personal blog The Diasporic Academic.
Adriana Perez-Encinas is our selected researcher for September 2017. She was awarded the EAIE Rising Star award, which honours a person who is a recent member of the EAIE (two to four years) and who has already made a notable contribution to international education.
Adriana is assistant lecturer and researcher in business organisations and the internationalisation of higher education and university management at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) in Spain. She is also a trainer for the EAIE Spring Academies. Adriana has a Bachelor´s degree in translation and interpreting (English and German), a Master’s degree in international relations with Latin America and a MBA. She also holds a PhD in Business Economics. During her six years as head of the International Relations Office in the Faculty of Business and Economics at UAM, she worked with local and international students, university partners and colleagues. Since 2005 she has volunteered for the Erasmus Student Network, serving variously as national representative, president of the UAM chapter, project coordinator and research member. Adriana is also a Steering group member of the EAIE Expert Community Mobility Advising.
See Adriana’s articles relevant to professional practice here
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