1^ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INCLUSIVE AND INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

Dr. Bert J. Tuga is the 11th President of the Philippine Normal University, the National Center for Teacher Education. Prior to his current post, he has occupied the following positions in the University: Vice President for Finance and Administration, Vice President for University Relations and Advancement, and Campus Executive Director & Provost of PNU Visayas.

Dr. Tuga also holds key positions in various networks and organization: President of the Philippine Association of Teachers of Educational Foundations (PATEF-UPDATE), Regional Chair of the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges – National Capital Region (PASUC-NCR), and Board Member of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA).

Dr. Tuga finished his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction in 2016 from the Philippine Normal University and completed a PhD Sandwich Program for his dissertation at the Ohio State University in Columbus, USA. He is also an alumnus of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) Fellowship Program on Higher Education Policy Development and a recipient of the Asian Development Bank – The HEAD (Healthcare & Education for Asian Development) Foundation Joint Professional Development Program on Education Reform and Implementation; completed an Immersive Workshop on Gender, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Institute of Development Studies of University of Sussex, United Kingdom; finished an Executive Program on Education Futures and Distance Education at the University of New England, Australia; and completed an online Certificate Program on Leadership and Management offered by Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania under the scholarship grant by the Commission on Higher Education.

Dr. Tuga has served as a consultant and resource person for several national and international projects implemented and/or funded by the European Union Erasmus+ Programme, SEAMEO Secretariat, SEAMEO INNOTECH, UNESCO APCEIU, UNESCO Bangkok, DepEd, and CHED. Notable projects include the international project on Global Citizenship Education implemented and funded by UNESCO Bangkok where he served as International Lead Consultant and the Global Academic Teacher Education 2.0 implemented KU Leuven, Belgium and funded by VLIR-UOS where he participated as resource participant for Southeast Asia.

Dr. Tuga teaches in the PNU Graduate School handling curriculum and instruction courses such as Foundations of Curriculum, Learning Theories and Practice, Critical and Reflective Pedagogy, and Alternative Management.

Dr. Tuga has been honored with several prestigious awards throughout his career. In 2018, he received the UNESCO Clubs Outstanding Educator Award. In 2022, he was honored with the Gawad Banyuhay para sa Karunungan by the Dr. Carl E. Balita Foundation. Additionally, he was recognized as the Outstanding Nortehanon of the Province of Northern Samar in the same year. Furthermore, Dr. Tuga has recently received two notable awards: The Office of the Government Corporate Counsel has awarded him the Carriedo Bahaghari Awards for Leader in Education, acknowledging his leadership in the field and the PNU Alumni Association, Inc. bestowed him the National Award for his outstanding accomplishments as an educator. Recently, Dr. Tuga was invited as visiting professor of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia; selected as Jury member of the prestigious, Wenhui Award for Educational Innovation in the Asia-Pacific Region; and invited as member, Final Board of Judges, Metrobank Outstanding Filipinos 2025.

Greg William Misiaszek, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Education after being an Associate Professor at Beijing Normal University's Faculty of Education. He holds the position of Associate Director at the Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA. He is the Chief Editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Environmental Education (with Karen Malone); Executive Editor of the Teaching in Higher Education journal, and Bloomsbury Book Series Editor of Freire In Focus (with Carlos Alberto Torres).

His work focuses on ecopedagogy, comparative/international studies, adult/higher education, socio-environmental justice, planetary sustainability, Freirean scholarship, anti-anthropocentrism, migration, technologies, (eco)linguistics, and Indigenous/Southern epistemological diversity through (post)critical theories of globalizations, citizenships, race, gender, and postdigitalism, among others.

His latest solo-authored books include Ecopedagogy and the Global Environmental Citizen: Critical Issues, Trends, Challenges and Possibilities (2025, Routledge) and Freire and Environmentalism: Ecopedagogy (2023, Bloomsbury). His latest edited books include the Palgrave Handbook on Critical Theories (Springer, 2023, with Ali Abdi) and Handbook of Ecological Civilization (2025, with Michael Peters, Ben Green & Zudong Zhu). He has four solo-authored books, six edited books, and over 70 other publications.

Dr. Misiaszek holds a Ph.D. from UCLA in Comparative Education, an M.S. in education (University of Southern California (USC)), and a B.S. in Environmental Studies (USC).

Dr. Arlyne Marasigan is a professor of educational leadership and management at the College of Advanced Studies (CAS), Philippine Normal University (PNU), Manila. She is a country director of Star Scholar Network. Since 2019 she's one of the associate editors of the PNU journal publications (The Normal Lights (TNL)), and a reviewer of other international and local journal publications. Currently she is faculty researcher of PNU's Education Policy and Research Development Office (EPRDO). She is the former Graduate Research Office (GResO) Director (2020-2022) in charge of assisting the college in establishing PNU's leadership in teacher education research by ensuring that graduate students become active contributors in international and national teacher education research networks and fora.

She is one of the researchers of three internationally-funded projects: (1) Educating Science Teachers for All (ESTA), an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) Grant-funded project that support pupils in science, partner countries need better education for pre-and in-service science teachers preparing then to teach diverse science classes in terms of language and culture; (2) Strengthening University-Enterprise Collaboration for Resilient Communities in Asia (SECRA), another Erasmus+ Programme Capacity Building in the Higher Education (E+CBHE) of the European Union; (3) an Australia Alumni Grants Scheme-funded project that reviews the basic education delivery in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in relation to peace, conflict, and the pandemic.

Furthermore, Dr. Marasigan's other accomplished projects are (1) the mid-term performance evaluation of USAID's program on Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines, known as ABC+; (2) two discussion papers on Madrasah Education under the Islamic Studies Program at UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Marasigan was invited as one of the trainers of the Commission on Higher Education-Quality Higher Education Action Research Training (CHED-QHEART) project funded by CHED, which aims to train in-service teachers and university faculty on Action Research.

In addition, she is the co-founder of LakbayLapis2019, which aims to support rural agri-education stakeholders. Likewise, she is a member of the Asia Organization Development Network, Pi Lambda Theta Philippines, Women's Studies Association of the Philippines (lifetime member), an associate member of the National Research Council of the Philippines, and other national and international education organizations. She is the Past President of the Rotary Club of Atimonan Lakambini District 3820 of Rotary International.

She has been a resource person in the areas of pedagogy, research, curriculum studies, science education, environmental sustainability, madrasah education, ecofeminism, rural education, green chemistry and comparative education in various local, national and international educational institutions and agencies.

Jovito C. Anito Jr. is an Associate Professor V at the College of Teacher Education, Jose Rizal Memorial State University (JRMSU) in Dapitan City, Philippines. He is a science educator, researcher, and research leader whose work bridges teacher professional development, action research, and postcolonial perspectives in knowledge production. He has served as Project Leader and collaborator on several CHED-funded research projects on assessment, flexible learning, and STEAM education.

His publications appear in Scopus- and ISI-indexed journals on science education, teacher professional development, and qualitative research, and he has co-authored a chapter on Qualitative Research Ethics in the SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in the Asian Context. He is also a regular member and current Vice Chair of Division I (Educational Policies) of the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP).

Professor Anito is a sought-after resource speaker, having conducted numerous national and international trainings on educational action research, culturally responsive pedagogy, and decolonizing research practices. His scholarship foregrounds equity, inclusivity, and indigenous knowledge integration, aligning with his advocacy to reimagine education leadership and policy for socially just and inclusive learning systems.

Dr. Mark Anthony M. Velasco is an educator, writer, and to an extent, an artist. He obtained his doctorate in Development Studies from De La Salle University. His education is strengthened by the professional training he received in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

He has spent a decade advocating innovating teaching strategies, producing knowledge through research, and contributing to policy-making to better society. He has extensively produced research journals and outputs that expand the practices and policies in education, governance, and development. He is also an author and reviewer of basic education textbooks.

He is currently serving as a Professor of De La Salle University and the Managing Director of the Asian Center of Education, Research, and Training for Innovation (ACERT), an organization that advocates for the nurturing and development of professionals.

Fernigil L. Colicol has a PhD in Education (Anthropology and Sociology of Education) from the College of Education, University of the Philippines Diliman. He is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Language Education (DLE) at MSU-TCTO College of Education. His research reflects his roots as a Subanen, hailed from Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte, Mindanao.

As an educational anthropologist-sociologist, he employs critical lenses to explore key educational issues related to social justice, equity, and inclusion. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, authored a book chapter, and contributed an article to NORRAG Global Education Centre. He dedicated most of his research work to Indigenous education and multilingual education.

He received two International Publication Awards from UP Diliman. This year, he won the 2025 Best Paper Award of the Comparative International Education Society-Indigenous Knowledge Academy (CIES-IKA) in the US. He presented research papers at international and national conferences in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and the US.

He currently serves as secretary of the CIES IKA SIG Board and continues his associate membership in the National Research Council of the Philippines. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from MSU-TCTO in 2010, and he ranked 8th in the Licensure Examination for Teachers in September 2010. In 2014, he obtained a Master of Arts in Education (Administration and Supervision) from the MSU-TCTO Graduate School. In 2015, he participated in the Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP), a US cultural exchange program hosted by Northern Illinois University.

Dr. Nilo Jayoma Castulo is a full professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Professional Services, Mindanao State University - Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography, Bongao, Philippines. He graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Education, with a research concentration in Educational Leadership and Policy, from the Institute of International and Comparative Education at Beijing Normal University, under the supervision of Professor Liu Baocun.

He is the only Filipino awardee of the prestigious ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship (ACYLS), who applied through the ASEAN University Network (AUN) in 2022. He served as a co-chair of the Global Migration Group of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in the United States and is a regional editor for the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education (JCIHE).

Dr. Castulo actively contributes as a committee member of the Comparative Education and Students Critical Leadership Society (CESCLS) at the Philippine Normal University. With a master's degree from Northeast Normal University, China (Master's in Education) and a bachelor's degree (Bachelor's in Secondary Education in English) from the FEU Institute of Education-Manila, he is also a licensed professional teacher in the Philippines.

He has extensive experience in curriculum evaluation with the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MFHEA) in Europe and has been involved in research projects with Save the Children Philippines, Childfund Korea, The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2), the Philippine Institute for Development Studies under AFFIRM Center for Research and Professional Learning, Inc and several Project-Based Research Grant (PBRG) proposals from the Philippine Normal University, Manila.

Recognized for his contributions to academic research, Dr. Castulo was awarded the Editor's Choice Award as a peer reviewer for the Q1 Journal of International Students and has reviewed several other high-impact journals, including Education and Information Technologies, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher (TAPER), among others.

He has contributed scholarly works on comparative education, international higher education, and education policy. His teaching and research interests include indigenous studies, migration studies, comparative education, and global education leadership.