Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) coordinates the review process. Reviewers are professionals in the field of education and workforce development. The review team is comprises staff from the Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP3) consortium, partner organizations, and university faculty.

Reviewer Bios

Brenda Bell, EDC

Brenda Bell has over 35 years of experience in formal and nonformal adult and youth education. Before joining EDC in 2005, for 13 years she was associate director of the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee, where she managed state, regional and national research and professional development programs. Currently, she is a senior technical adviser with EDC’s International Development Division on basic education, literacy, and work readiness initiatives. She serves as senior education adviser to the Education Quality and Access for Learning and Livelihood Skills (EQuALLS2) project in the Philippines and to the Core Education Skills for Liberian Youth (CESLY) program in Liberia. She also supports the Akazi Kanoze Youth Program in Rwanda, the Al-Saleh Youth Development and Training Institute in Yemen, and in the past has worked with the PAS (Preparing Ourselves for Work) Program in Timor Leste and the Afghanistan Literacy and Community Empowerment Program.

Brenda's set of skills and experience includes professional development for educational improvement; facilitation and training of trainers; development and alignment of standards, curriculum, and assessment; program evaluation; and implementation of participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation. From 1995 to 2004, she managed the classroom-based research, the teacher professional development programs, and the development of a performance‐based assessment system for Equipped for the Future, the U.S. National Institute for Literacy’s standards-based educational improvement initiative.

In addition to being a member of the review panel, Brenda wrote the Guidance for Program Managers section of this website.

Jacqueline Glin, EDC

Jacqueline Hardware Glin is an international project director at EDC. With more than 15 years of experience in international development, Jacqueline is responsible for providing strategic direction and management to an EQUIP3 project in the northeastern province of Kenya. Before joining EDC in 2009, Jacqueline lived and worked in Nigeria for six years, first as technical advisor to a workforce development project and subsequently as country director, where she was responsible for new business development and oversaw numerous educational and youth development initiatives funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and the Cross River State government. As a seasoned youth development specialist and project manager, Jacqueline has experience collaborating with host governments, International Finance Corporation (IFC)/World Bank, USAID and other multilateral and bilateral donor countries and agencies. An alumna of the University of Maryland, College Park, Jacqueline possesses excellent managerial skills and extensive, practical experience in job-creation programs for youth in Africa. She is fluent in French.

Dennis R. Herschbach, University of Maryland

Dennis R. Herschbach is a faculty member in the Department of Policy Studies in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is involved in human resource development at both the national and international levels. At the national level, he has most recently focused on technology education. His most recent publication is Technology Education: Foundations and Perspectives. At the international level, his research and publications revolve primarily around workforce policy and planning, and issues of program quality and sustainability in developing countries. He also has done extensive work in curriculum and instructional design and development. He was the former deputy director of the International Labour Organization's training center in Turin, Italy. He has served as a consultant for a number of international development agencies and organizations.

Ann Hershkowitz, EDC

Ann Hershkowitz is an international program associate with EDC, where she supports youth development programs, including the EQUIP3 Leader Award and the IDEJEN project in Haiti. Before coming to EDC, she worked with Twana Twitu, an organization that supports Kenyan children orphaned by AIDS. She has professional experience in youth participation and livelihoods, HIV/AIDS, organizational development, and nonformal education. Ann received her MA in International Development from American University.   

Elizabeth Miller Pittman, EDC

Elizabeth Miller Pittman has worked with EDC for the past five years, focusing on community participation in formal and nonformal education, and work readiness/skills development programs for youth. With a background in training and nonformal education, she has extensive experience in curriculum development and training. She has provided technical assistance to numerous youth projects, including the Education Quality and Access for Learning and Livelihood Skills (EQuALLS2) project in the Philippines and more recently the Rwanda Youth Program (Akazi Kanoze) in Rwanda, developing a work readiness curriculum for out-of-school youth and helping to build the capacity of local partner organizations in its implementation.

Saba Mobaslat, Save the Children

Saba Mobaslat has been working in the field of youth and child development for more than 16 years. She has also worked in engineering, education and community development—particularly related to youth programming and strategic planning. Saba’s strategic vision, leadership and in-depth knowledge of the needs of children, youth and their families in the Arab world, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, contributed to the success of Save the Children’s youth portfolio. Saba has brought leadership capacities in program design and curriculum development with a special focus on youth participation, leadership and employment.

Saba received her master’s degree in special education from Framingham State College, near Boston, Mass., and is currently leading the Youth Sector in Save the Children's Jordan office. In addition, she is providing technical assistance for various Save the Children offices in the MENA and Eurasia regions on youth livelihood-readiness programs and working with the regional youth sector team and country offices on developing and promoting Save the Children’s youth strategy.

Kate Raftery, International Youth Foundation

Kate Raftery joined the International Youth Foundation (IYF) in 2008 as the vice president for Learning and Citizenship. In this capacity, she oversees the implementation of life skills training in countries around the world. She also supervises a multi-country entrepreneurship program that engages local organizational partners and youth. Before joining the IYF staff, she was the division chief for field assistance at the United States Peace Corps. With the Peace Corps, Kate served as country director for operations in Honduras, Peru and the Eastern Caribbean. The program focus in all the countries where Kate has served has been positive youth development with the instruction of life skills as a key component. In addition, she served as the chief of operations for the Inter-America and Pacific region and the head of volunteer recruitment and selection for the Peace Corps at the Washington, D.C., headquarters. Kate has also served as executive director of the National Park Foundation and vice president of Partners of the Americas for Leadership.

David Rosen, Consultant

David Rosen was the director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute/SABES Greater Boston Regional Support Center at the University of Massachusetts in Boston from 1986 to 2003. As an education consultant, he now provides assistance to five different organizations. In his work with EDC, David develops and oversees the USAID-sponsored Bangladesh Youth Employment Pilot; helps the Ministry of Education in Haiti develop a national, nonformal learning system policy framework; and has developed and is implementing a USAID-sponsored nonformal education system in Liberia. David works with YouthBuild International to adapt vocational and literacy materials for youth programs in Haiti in connection with the USAID-sponsored EDC IDEJEN project, as well as with the Health Care Learning Network in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where he designs and evaluates an online and face-to-face learning system for incumbent workers in hospitals and nursing homes. David also works as an adviser to McDonald’s Corporation, advising for English Under the Arches, a distance education ESOL program for immigrant restaurant workers. In addition, David is currently serving as a regional implementation advisor for the National Learner Web Demonstration project with Portland State University (Oregon).

Mariko Scavone, Making Cents International

Mariko Scavone is a curriculum and training specialist with extensive field experience in Nigeria, Bolivia, and Malaysia. She has designed and validated curricula to train farmers in basic business skills and has conducted over 160 hours of training of trainer courses on topics including how to be a better facilitator/trainer and relevant business development subjects. Mariko is well-versed in both the “soft” employability skills as well as the hard skills that are attractive to employers and is able to recognize these in curricula. As a skilled facilitator, she can also evaluate whether the curricula provide an interesting format for end-users and are teachable for those responsible for delivering the training. In addition to her curriculum expertise, Mariko has significant experience in the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. She holds an MS in International Development from Georgetown University.

Ali Al Yacoub, Kuwait University

Dr. Ali Al Yacoub is an associate professor and former chair of the Department of Administration & Foundation of Education at the College of Basic Education in Kuwait. He holds a PhD in Administration and Policy Studies with a focus on education from the University of Pittsburgh. He has worked for the United Nations Development Program in Kuwait and as a consultant to the government of Kuwait. His research includes an analysis of English language curriculum at the primary level. He is fluent in Arabic and English.

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