Plenary Speakers

The International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences will feature plenary sessions by some of the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in the field, as well as numerous parallel presentations by researchers and practitioners.

Garden Conversations

Plenary Speakers will make formal 30-minute presentations. They will also participate in 60-minute Garden Conversations – unstructured sessions that allow delegates a chance to meet the speakers and talk with them informally about the issues arising from their presentation.

Please return to this page for regular updates.

The Speakers

Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards Schachter is researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, consultant and writer. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Valencia in 2003 with the thesis ‘La atención a la situación del mundo en la educación científica’ (The attention paid to the state of the World by science education, http://lsg.ucy.ac.cy/esera/phd/abstract107.html). Mónica is trained in both natural and social sciences; she holds Degrees in Mathematics and Physics and Electronic Engineering, a Diploma in Knowledge Management for the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in 2004 (FLACSO, Mexico) and she is Specialist in Engineering and Innovation Projects (Polytechnic University of Valencia, 2006).

At present Monica teaches Creativity and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Master of Science and Innovation Management, sponsored by the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). She has over 20 years of experience in teaching, in-service training and consultancy in planning and educational innovation in several middle and higher education institutions in Argentina, Spain, Honduras, Costa Rica and Paraguay. From 1991 to 1997 she was engineer in charge of the Laboratory of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Infrared Spectroscopy at the Faculty of Chemistry (University of Cordoba, Argentina).

Since February 2008 she is researcher at the Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management (INGENIO, CSIC-UPV). She participated in numerous national and international research projects and contracts and supervised a doctoral thesis on the evaluation of cooperative work. She currently supervises thesis on social innovation and development of entrepreneurship and innovation competences. She is author and co-author of more than one hundred publications and presentations at conferences and seminars, in such journals as the Journal Proceedings of the IEEE, Environmental Education Research, the Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad (OEI), the Journal of Technology Management, among others. She is member of the Social Innovation Platform Europe and blogger of the magazine Tendencias21 (http://www.tendencias21.net/innovacion). Mónica received six awards in poetry, including a prize for her book Redes para la Paz (Networks for peace), an essay on the interrelationships between peace, environment and sustainable development published in 2007 by the Foundation Culture of Peace and the Seminario Gallego de Educación para la Paz. Monica also participates in a training program (5th edition) on motivation in science education that constitutes an example of good practice in a recent UNESCO report. Her main research interests are social innovation, technological development and sustainability, Science-Technology-Society-Environment issues, science education, competences and skills development, especially in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Celia B. Fisher

Celia B. Fisher, PhD, Director of the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education and the Marie Ward Doty University Chair and Professor of Psychology has served as Chair of the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethics Code Task Force responsible for the 2002 revision of the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. She has served as Chair of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Human Subjects Research Board, the New York State Board for Licensure in Psychology, the National Task Force on Applied Developmental Science, and the Society for Research in Child Development Committee for Ethical Conduct in Child Development Research. Dr. Fisher also served as the founding director of the Fordham University Doctoral Program in Applied Developmental Psychology and is a co-founding editor of the journal Applied Developmental Science.

Dr. Fisher has written commissioned papers on research ethics with mentally impaired and vulnerable populations for President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission and for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) on HIV education, treatment, and referrals for research participants. Dr. Fisher has co-edited eight books and authored more than 150 scholarly chapters and empirical articles on cognitive and social development across the life span and on research and professional ethics with special emphasis on the rights of racial/ethnic minorities, children and adults with impaired decision making, and socially marginalized populations. She is also Principle Investigator and Director of the NIDA supported Fordham University HIV Research Ethics Training Institute. She is the recipient of the 2010 Award for Excellence in Human Research Protection Life Time Achievement Award.

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Patricia Leavy

Patricia Leavy is an author, expert commentator and leading qualitative researcher with a dozen books to her credit. After receiving several prestigious awards and fellowships Dr. Leavy earned her PhD in Sociology and served as Founding Director for the Gender Studies Program at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. She has also served as the Chairperson of the Sociology & Criminology Department at Stonehill College. Dr. Leavy previously taught at Boston College, Northeastern University and Curry College.

As a research methodologist Dr. Levy has published sever cutting-edge research methods books. She is the author of Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research Practice: Using Problem-Centered Methodologies (Left Coast Press, 2011); Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research (Oxford University press, 2011) and Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice (Guilford Press, 2009), amongst others. She is also the editor for the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (forthcoming). Oxford University Press hand-picked Dr. Leavy to serve as series editor for their book series Understanding Qualitative Research and she is also the series editor for the cutting-edge Sense Publishers book series Social Fictions, which publishes books grounded in research but written in literary forms.

In addition to her extensive work advancing social science methodology, Dr. Leavy is also a pop culture and women’s studies expert. Dr. Leavy has spent nearly a decade conducting interview research with young women on topics including sexuality, relationships and body image. As a sociologist, pop culture and women’s studies expert Dr. Leavy has appeared on national and local television and is regularly quoted in international, national and local print news including The New York Times, USA Today and the Boston Globe. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the discipline of sociology, The New England Sociological Association named Dr. Leavy the 2010 “New Engalnd Sociologist of the Year.”

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Nitza Nachmias

Nitza Nachmias received her MA and PH.D in Political Science from the Graduate Center of the City University if New York, (CUNY) and her B.A from Baruch College, Summa Cum Laude. She is a professor of Political Science at Towson University, Maryland, a Senior Research Fellow at the Jewish Arab Center, Haifa University (Israel), and a professor at the Tel Aviv University Social Science Department, specializing in Conflict Management. Her research focuses on international humanitarian aid; post conflict human and economic development, refugees and internally displaced persons, international mediation and peacekeeping, among other international and global issues. Globalization creates both opportunities and hurdles for national and individual development. Violence and terrorism threaten the peace and stability of the world. Professor Nachmias has been dedicating her research to finding ways to resolve these important problems. In addition to her academic activities, professor Nachmias serves on several policy forums in Israel, and has been an advisor to the Foreign Office on Palestinian refugees issues. She previously served as Executive Director of the National Council of Women of the United States, and as Deputy executive Director of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (New York). Professor Nachmias published four books and various articles on international relations and humanitarian aid.

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Anthony Synnott

After brief careers in the Royal Navy and the Jesuits, Anthony Synnott received a B.Sc. from the London School of Economics, an MA from the University of Western Ontario and his PhD from London University. He is now Professor of Sociology at Concordia University in Montreal. He is the author of “The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society” (Routledge, 1993), “Shadows: Issues and Social Problems in Canada” (Prentice Hall, 1996), co-author with Constance Classen and David Howes of “Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell” (Routledge, 1994) and most recently of “Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims” (Ashgate, 2009). He is currently working on a second edition of “Re-Thinking Men” and a lighter volume on sex to accompany the serious textbooks on the topic. He also writes a blog for Psychology Today, usually about men.

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Alfonso Unceta

Mr. Alfonso Unceta has a PhD in Political Science and Sociology, and he is also Head Professor of Sociology at the University of the Basque Country. He has participated in over thirty research projects and external contracts. He has authored more than forty publications (books, collective books and articles in magazines). His main lines of work are Innovation, Education and Governance. Since 2007 he has been the Director of the Master Course in Management of Innovation and Knowledge. Today he is also Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication. He was the Director of Universities and Deputy Councilor for Education of the Basque Government.

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