iEARN-USA Appoints Tonya Muro as Executive Director
Posted on December 02, 2015
NEW YORK, December 2, 2015 - The Board of Directors of iEARN-USA is pleased to announce that Dr. Tonya Muro will assume the position of Executive Director in January 2016. “We are excited to have Tonya join the organization. She brings energy, skills in virtual and physical exchanges, and is an eloquent advocate for the need for all students in the US to be globally competent,” said Mona Eraiba, Chair of the iEARN-USA Board. Tonya will head up the professional staff of iEARN-USA in New York City.
Prior to joining iEARN-USA, Tonya worked with Global Nomads Group and AFS-USA to expand global opportunities for young people, teachers and communities across the US and abroad. She has also helped to build a coalition of global learning organizations in the New York City area (GEC-NYC), working to internationalize education and bring the world into classrooms.
Tonya received her EdD in International Education Development from Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she also worked in Corporate and Foundation Relations, as well as receiving a Fulbright to study HIV-AIDS entertainment-education programs for youth in rural Tanzania. Most recently, at AFS-USA, she served as Director of School Outreach and Educational Partnerships, working with educators across the US to internationalize their classrooms through intercultural learning via youth exchanges. At Global Nomads Group, Tonya was Director of Programs, overseeing virtual exchanges between classes in the US and those in countries in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
“Tonya’s experience and enthusiasm for global competency will be major assets for iEARN as the leading virtual exchange network globally,” said Dr. Edwin Gragert, Interim and founding Executive Director of iEARN-USA.
iEARN-USA pioneered virtual global exchanges with a pilot project linking classes in the US and Soviet Union in 1988. iEARN has since scaled this initiative over the past 27 years and now engages about 50,000 teachers and 2 million students daily in online collaborative project-based learning. As the world’s largest online global network, iEARN has organizations and relations with Ministries of Education in 140 countries. Through this network, teachers globally receive support for innovative uses of connective technologies in the classroom and curricula. iEARN also co-facilitates high school student physical exchanges sponsored by the US Department of State, including the Christopher Stevens Youth Network, Youth Exchange and Study (YES) and National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) programs.