A former Fulbright Scholar who lived two years in northern Finland, Dr. Nelsen has been involved in global studies and international education since the early 1960s.  Professionally, he has traveled widely in Baltic, Balkan, and South American countries, (including Finalnd, Estonia, Russia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina), and has led numerous projects in these regions for American educators interested in international/ intercultural studies. He has also traveled privately in Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, Thailand, Viet Nam, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Egypt, Oman, Jordan, Greece, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Scotland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland.  He has worked extensively with international/intercultural studies personnel in the United States and overseas and has authored a text, The American Scene, used in English language and American Studies classes in Finland. 

In 1997, Dr. Nelsen was received as a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the government of Finland in recognition of over three decades of contributions to Finnish education and Finnish-American relationships.

Dr. László Pordany will serve as the project's Overseas Coordinator. A career educator, Dr. Pordany served as a professor of British and American Studies at Hungary's Szeged University from 1978 through 1990. Dr. Pordany completed his undergraduate work at Attila Jozsef Uniuversity of Arts and Sciences in Szeged and later earned a masters degree from the University of Szged and a PhD in linguistics from the University of Indiana. He has done additional research and study at the Hungarian Academy of Science, Cambridge University, Leningrad University, the Kennedy Institute in Berlin, and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon.

Dr. Pordany was a founding member of the Magyar Democratic Forum, the first nationwide national democractic movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Following Hungary's exit from the Soviet-bloc in 1990, he was appointed to the Hungarian Foreign Office and served as his nation's ambassador to Australia and New Zealand (1990-94) and to South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Angola (1999-2003). He has written well over a hundred articles and analyses in various European and overseas issues and events, focusing mainly on the socio-political changes in eastern and central Europe during the past fifteen years.

He served as Overseas's Coordinator CEC's 1990 Group Projects Abroad program in Hungary.

Project Associate, Croatia

Mr. Sinisa Ozimec has provided pre-travel coordination services for the project in Croatia and will accompany the group during its time in that country. An instructor and PhD candidate at J. J. Strossmayer University in Osijek, his specialty areas are biodiversity and plant ecology, two of ECHO's central interests in the "environmental landscape" topic area.

He has done much of the research work for his doctorate in the Danube watershed, mainly along a twenty kilometer stretch from the juncture of the Drava and Danube rivers, including the protected wetlands of the Kopaèki Nature Park. His own experience as well as that of the numerous specialists with whom he works and who have offered their assistance to ECHO will bring a wealth of expertise to enrich participants' time in Croatia.

Dr. Keith Kershner serves as Executive Co-Director of Research for Better Schools, a national non-profit agency based in Philadelphia. He Dr. Kershner currently has responsibility for developing and managing research and dissemination programs supported by international, national, state, and local funding agencies. These projects focus on disseminating successful programs and practices through regional, national, and international networks, a capacity that will be of great benefit to ECHO.

Dr. Kershner has previously served as RBS' director of Publications Division, director of the Research and Evaluation Division, and director of the Evaluation Services Group. Dr. Kershner holds a degree in Slavic languages for Princeton University, as well as a doctorate in behavioral sciences from the University of Delaware and a master's degree in educational research from Bucknell University. He has earned a post-doctoral Certificate of Linguistic Proficiency from the University of Vienna.

He has been the principal investigator or principal consultant on many federal and state grants supporting technology and science education in the classroom and led a variety of state, regional, and national workshops on hands-on science and technology.

 Ms. Rainboth has  worked closely with CEC in the course of the 1999, 2001, and 2002 ECHO programs and in two EPA-funded projects, Learning About Biodiversity (LAB) and Science Improvement Through Environmental Studies (SITES), serving as the principal instructor in both.   She has developed an integrated, cross-grade environmental studies scope-and-sequence which has been introduced in seven western states and implemented in Oregon, Alaska, Nevada, California, and Montana.