KEYNOTES

Darren Axe is membership and engagement manager at Students Organizing for Sustainability International (SOS International). Darren is a systems-thinking educator and International Mountain Leader. He convenes the SOS International global network of student and youth organizations working on transforming higher education for environmental and social justice. This includes youth advocacy in global education policy-setting spaces and engaging governmental and non-governmental actors in strategic dialogue. On the ground, Darren delivers training, capacity building and promotes collaborative community structures of governance and project delivery within higher education institutions.

Marcelline Djeumeni Tchamabe is a full professor at the University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon. She is a member of the Board of Directors of REUnifedd (University Network for Training and Education in Sustainable Development), responsible for international affairs. She is the national coordinator of the Master’s programme in Training of Trainers in Education and Training for Sustainable Development, which is currently offered in more than five countries. Her research focuses on the training of primary, secondary and university teachers. Her research areas include digital tools and sustainable development, meta-skills in ESD, teachers’ public and private practices involving ICT, pedagogical innovation and research. She leads conferences, workshops and research seminars on pedagogical innovation and sustainable development.

Daniel Fischer is Professor of Sustainability Education and Communication and Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development at Leuphana University Lüneburg, where he also serves as the Director of the Sustainability Education and Transdisciplinary Research Institute (SETRI) and coordinates the UNITWIN Network on ESD and Social Transformation. He is a trained primary school teacher, completed a Masters degree in educational management and school development, and a PhD in Sustainability Science. His research explores how more sustainable ways of living can be facilitated in education, with a special emphasis on Teacher Education and Teacher Leadership. His current projects are on learning assessment, transdisciplinary learning interventions and capacity building in ESD leadership. Previously, he held academic positions at Arizona State University (USA) and Wageningen University (The Netherlands). More on his work can be found on the webpages of his Sustainability Education Research Group (SERG).

A philosopher and sociologist by training, Irène Pereira is a Professor of Education and Training Sciences at the University of Rouen Normandy and a researcher at the CIRNEF laboratory. Her current work focuses on the philosophy of education and ethics. She specializes in critical pedagogies in the tradition of Paulo Freire. She has authored and edited several books on the subject: Paulo Freire: Pedagogues of the Oppressed (2017), Critical Philosophy in Education (2018), The International Anthology of Critical Pedagogy (2019), and Ecopedagogy: Educating for Social and Ecological Justice (2024).

MANDY SINGER-BRODOWSKI

Prof. Dr. Mandy Singer-Brodowski studied educational science at the University of Erfurt. She worked at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy and as the scientific coordinator of the Center for Transformation Research and Sustainability at the University of Wuppertal. In 2015 she completed her PhD at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg about Self-organised Learning and Competence Development in Higher Education for Sustainable Development. After being PI of different research projects at Freie Universität Berlin, she was appointed as a professor for Education for Sustainable Development at the University of Regensburg (Germany) in 2024.

Noah W. Sobe, PhD, is Chief of Section for Higher Education at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Prior to this appointment he had a two-decade career as a professor at Loyola University Chicago. He was previously at UNESCO (2019-2022) helping to lead a flagship futures of education initiative. Additionally, he is a past president of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) and former co-editor of the journal European Education.