Purple Jacaranda

Claude-Hélène Mayer ist Professorin für Industrial and Organisational Psychology am Department for Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg, Südafrika. Sie ist zudem Privatdozentin am Institut für Sprachgebrauch und Therapeutische Kommunikation an der Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), in Deutschland und Senior Research Associate an der Rhodes University, Grahamstown, Südafrika. International arbeitet sie als Mediatorin und Ausbilderin für Mediation (BM), als interkulturelle Trainerin, systemische Beraterin, Therapeutin und Lehrtherapeutin (SG, DGSF). Weiterhin ist sie weltweit in der internationalen Unternehmensberatung tätig. Ihre Forschung schließt Themen wie Frauen in Führung, interkulturelle Mediation und Konfliktmanagement, Gesundheit in Organisationen und Scham ein. Mayer, Claude-Hélène, (Dr. habil., PhD, PhD) is a Professor in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management at the University of Johannesburg, an Adjunct Professor at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany and a Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology (University of Pretoria, South Africa), a Ph.D. in management (Rhodes University, South Africa), a doctorate (Georg-August University, Germany) in political sciences (socio-cultural anthropology and intercultural didactics), and a habilitation (European University Viadrina, Germany) in psychology with focus on work, organizational, and cultural psychology. She has published several monographs, text collections, accredited journal articles, and special issues on transcultural mental health, sense of coherence, shame, culture and health, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership in culturally diverse work contexts, constellation work, coaching, and psychobiography.
ISNI: 0000 0001 1559 4559

Prof. Dr. Wolting holds a chair in intercultural communication at the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Poznan in Poland. The focus of his work is on intercultural trainings, creative and autobiographic writing.
ISNI: 0000 0001 1049 6503

Blandine Bizy was born in 1956 into a French-Polish family and spent her childhood between Burgundy and northern France where the Polish community had clustered. These stays in Mazingarbe (département du Nord) were like a trip to the Polish traditions deeply rooted in this region of France where Polish immigrants used to work in the coal mining industry. At present, Blandine Bizy is a medical assistant in Paris.

Gregory Bond was born 1963 in Manchester, UK. He went to school in south Manchester and studied German and French language and literature at various universities in the UK and Germany. George worked as a teacher of English in Germany for many years and is a trained and practising mediator and facilitator. Today he teaches Communication and Mediation at the University of Applied Sciences, Wildau, Berlin. He has worked on international projects across Europe, in China and Russia and has published eclectically on German and English literature, and on mediation.

Dr. Christian Boness ist Lehrbeauftragter am Pädagogischen Seminar der Universität Göttingen, Oberstudienrat, Diplom-Theologe und Mediator. Er war mehrere Jahre in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in Tansania tätig und arbeitet heute im Auftrag des Instituts für Interkulturelle Praxis und Konfliktmanagement (IIPK) als Berater deutscher Organisationen, die mit Partnern in Ostafrika kooperieren. Christian Boness is Lecturer at the Pedagogical Seminar of the University of Göttingen, Germany. He holds Master's degrees in theology and political sciences and a Doctorate in intercultural education. He already has several years of experience as an international consultant at the Institute for Cross-cultural Practice and Conflict Management in Germany, working with organisations cooperating with East Africa. He has published several articles and books on cross-cultural communication and mediation in European and African contexts.
ISNI: 0000 0001 1093 637X

Orna Braun-Lewensohn is a senior lecturer and the head of the Conflict Resolution and Conflict Management programme at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Israel). She received her PhD at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Brussels. Her major research interests include mental health outcomes and coping during or following exposure to violent political events. Orna focused in her research on personal as well as communal coping resources in different cultural groups. Based on her research she has published in various journals.

David Castleton is a novelist, teacher and academic who was born in the UK in 1974. After growing up in the rural north of England, his first experience of culture shock and intercultural communication perhaps came with a move to London at the age of 18. Altogether he has spent twelve years in that city, gaining there a BA in history, an MA in cultural history and two specialist teaching qualifications. After working extensively as an English language teacher both in London and Spain, David moved to Miskolc in Hungary, where he was employed as a university lecturer. He has since juggled writing with teaching stints at the University of Miskolc and the University of Manchester, teaching courses in subjects as diverse as translation, academic English, text analysis, public speaking and - of course - intercultural communication. For his many sins, he has also worked as an academic proofreader, as well as a copy editor of novels and plays. He has travelled extensively, visiting locations such as Morocco, Thailand, Albania, Georgia, Macedonia and many other places. He has recently found more time, in the beautiful city of Poznan, Poland, to dedicate himself to his greatest passion - creative writing.

Anna Chita's specialist field concerns German as Foreign Language/German as Second Language, contrastive linguistics, intercultural communication and test development. She studied German Philology: German as Foreign Language/German as Second Language as well as Psychology and School Pedagogy (1999). Since 1999 she has been a professor and free coordinator of several courses and integration courses for foreign young people and adults. Since 2003 she has been scientific coordinator of the approved testing for foreign languages of the Greek Ministry of Cultural Affairs for the further education of examiners. Since 2010 she has been scientific coordinator of the Higher Technical Institute "Business Administration" of Igoumenitsa/Greece in Applied Foreign Languages in Trade and Management.

Melisa Choubak is currently at the PhD level of her studies in the Applied Social Psychology programme at the University of Guelph, Canada, where she is part of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. Her passion for research stems in part from her own experiences as a first-generation immigrant. Research that gives back to marginalised/under-represented communities and informs community action and policy is very intriguing to her. She is mostly interested in the intersectionality of multiple oppressed identities and hard-to-reach populations. Feminist and anti-oppression research frameworks are integral to her research and interests. She also holds a degree in education, and her passions include social justice and humane education for children to foster compassion and respect for all living beings. A diverse track record of volunteerism and professional development has allowed her to gain multiple perspectives for research and life.

Clifford H. Clarke, the founder and CEO of Clarke Consulting Group, Inc. (1980), a global consulting and training firm that was headquartered in Redwood City, California, is now retired in Kyoto, Japan. A founder of the intercultural field who has led the way in merging the intercultural and business worlds, Clifford's geographical area of expertise is Japan. His family has an extensive history in that country dating back to 1898; he himself lived in Japan from the age of 7 until he returned to the US to attend college. His strong academic background in Stanford University's Interdisciplinary Studies in the Social Sciences PhD programme (ABD) is supplemented by his extensive experience in global business consulting. Clifford taught courses in Intercultural Communication for eight years at Stanford University where he founded and directed the Stanford Institute for Intercultural Communication for ten years. While at Stanford he also designed and implemented US English teacher selection systems for two Japanese Ministries for ten years. Following his eleven-year career as the foreign student counsellor at Cornell and Stanford Universities, in 1980 Clifford began serving as a consultant to global corporations by directing corporate culture research projects and facilitating technology transfers for numerous American companies with subsidiaries primarily in Japan. He designed and conducted workshops for senior management teams on culturally integrated leadership, intercultural team-building and corporate culture change and development. In 2005 he returned to academia and taught Intercultural Communication courses for five years at the University of Hawaii. Clifford is currently focusing his work on more writing and published his latest article, Reflections from History: How Shifting Paradigms Created Intercultural Innovations, in the Journal of Intercultural Communication, No. 20, 2017 (July).

Aden-Paul Flotman was born in Grahamstown (South Africa), where he matriculated and started his initial training as an industrial and organisational psychologist at Rhodes University. He joined the Military Psychological Institute and Absa Bank in the capacity of organisation development manager. He is an integral coach and is currently working as a senior lecturer at the University of South Africa. Aden-Paul is married to Rosanne. They have three children, Landreth, Shanaaz and an adorable Pekingese called Levi. Aden-Paul sees himself as a community activist and a keen follower of advances in the medical field, open distance, e-learning, and leadership authorisation.

Jammal, Elias, born in 1954, is Palestinian German. He studied Philosophy, History of Arts and Physics at the University of Heidelberg, afterwards obtaining his PhD at the University of Kaiserslautern and an MBA in England. For 15 years he was the managing director of the Institute for Development Aid (IEZ) working in the fields of development aid and economic development, especially in Middle Eastern countries. Since 1998 he has been a professor in intercultural studies and intercultural communication at the University of Heilbronn.

Dominika Krysztofowicz was born in Poznan, Poland in 1991. She graduated from law and applied linguistics at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. At present she works as a lawyer. She took part in various international projects, collaborating with i.a. Philipps-Universität Marburg, Technische Universität Darmstadt and Freie Universität Berlin. She participated in the programme of European Master in Intercultural Communication at INALCO, Sorbonne Paris-Cité in Paris in 2014. Dominika finished twelve years of musical education in a public musical school.

Ashutosh Kumar was born in a remote part of North India. For higher studies, he moved to Delhi and studied at the Department of English, Delhi University. After completing his studies, he taught in the colleges of Delhi University for three years. He then moved to Poland with his wife, a Polish national. Currently he lives in Poznan and teaches English in a school.

Rashelle Litchmore VH is a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph in Applied Social Psychology. She obtained her BSc in Psychology at the University of Toronto and her MA in Applied Social Psychology from the University of Guelph. Her research interests include race, ethnicity, culture and identity, particularly among second-generation and youth populations. She takes a primarily social-constructionist approach to this work, with an emphasis on examining immediate and broader social context for an understanding of culture and identity. Rashelle also conducts research and evaluation work for social service organisations, with an interest in the implementation and assessment of social psychological research in community settings.

Mandar Shrikrishna Purandare was born in Pune, Maharashtra, India. Since childhood he has been connected with theatre, mostly as an actor. Later he studied Metallurgical Engineering, and worked as a metallurgist for a few years. After that, he started learning German and became a translator combining the experience of engineering and language. He has worked on technical as well as literary translation. In 2001 he formed a theatre group TG001 together with Dr Manjiri Paranjape. The group undertook many theatrical adventures -such as 'Herkules und der Stall des Augias', 'Ende des Zeitalters' (translation of a Marathi Yugaant by Mahesh Elkunchwar), 'Kafkaesk' - a theatrical compilation of short stories by Franz Kafka. He has been living in Poznan since 2008, working as a Hindi native speaker in UAM Poznan, and also working on Polish theatre.

Safdar, Saba is an Iranian-born Canadian-educated associate professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Guelph in Canada, where she is Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. She received her PhD from York University in Toronto in 2002 and has held a faculty position since graduation. Additionally, she has been a visiting scholar at several universities across the globe including the US, the UK, France, Poland, Colombia, India and Kazakhstan. Professor Safdar's research primarily examines the wide range of factors that could help to understand adaptation processes of newcomers, including immigrants and international students. She is a member of the editorial boards of several journals. Her TEDx talk was entitled "Everything you always wanted to know about culture but were afraid to ask."

Van der Heyden, Ulrich, Professor, Dr.phil, Dr.rer.pol.habil. and PhD (Rhodes University Grahamstown/South Africa) is a historian with special interests in African and colonial history, as well as a political scientist with the main emphasis on Africa. He is an associate research professor at a university in South Africa and senior researcher at the Free University and the Humboldt University in Berlin, where he teaches African, Colonial and Mission History.
ISNI: 0000 0001 1077 8332

Oliver Spatz was born 1969 in Hamburg, Germany and is the artistic director of Kleist Theatre in Frankfurt (Oder). He studied theatre science, history of art and psychology in Munich and Berlin. His work experience is in experimental and institutional culture contexts. He is the writer and director of bilingual musical plays.

Eva Teshajev, coming from a mixed background and having lived in several European countries, considers herself a European. She has always been interested in languages and is a believer in the saying "the more languages I speak, the more times I am a human being". After finishing school, this attitude led her to study Russian and Polish Translation, Applied Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Mainz. She is now a professional translator and a university lecturer in the translation field. After finishing her degree, Eva spent some years in southern Spain and England. She then got a job as a native-speaker lecturer of German, with the Robert Bosch Foundation, in Miskolc, Hungary. She spent six years there, enabling her to deeply acquaint herself with the way of life in the north-east of that country. Eva currently lives in Poznan, Poland, where she works on behalf of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Though culture shock has been a frequent experience for Eva, she believes that each country she has spent time in has left some traces on her personality.