IGU Advisory Council

Minna Yu is a professor of accounting at the Leon Hess Business School at Monmouth University, with an academic career spanning over two decades across China and the United States. She earned her Ph.D. in business administration from Kent State University, following master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Northeastern University of Finance and Economics in China. Drawing on her cross-cultural expertise, she has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, including International Accounting, and has mentored numerous students in research projects presented at university scholarship forums.

Yu’s research focuses on international accounting, analyst forecasts, corporate governance, and auditing. Her work has appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, China Accounting and Finance Review, and Journal of International Accounting Research, earning multiple best paper and highly commended awards. She is a frequent presenter at international conferences, including the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting, and has been invited to speak at professional and academic events worldwide. Her studies often employ cross-country data to explore the impact of global financial reporting standards, market structures, and institutional environments on accounting quality and investor decision-making.

Yu has also played a prominent leadership role in the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), a globally recognized organization serving accounting and finance professionals in over 150 countries. From 2011 to 2016, she served as director of the IMA Research Foundation, guiding research initiatives that advanced thought leadership in management accounting worldwide. She has likewise been an influential leader in the American Accounting Association’s International Accounting Section, serving as membership committee chair, co-chair of the International Relations Committee, and co-chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee, among other roles that strengthened the section’s global connections. In both organizations, she has fostered collaborations between academics and practitioners, championed cross-border knowledge sharing, and promoted the integration of global perspectives in accounting research and education. Yu currently serves as director of Monmouth University’s Institute for Global Understanding, where she continues to advance cultural awareness and global engagement across the campus and the profession.

Carson Clements, J.D., Ph.D., joined the Monmouth University faculty in January 2023. Currently, he teaches and coordinates all of the law courses for the Leon Hess Business School. Dr. Clements is a member of the Global Education Committee, International Global Institute Advisory Board, co-chair of the Pearson World Cinema Series Committee, serves on the AI Task Force for Monmouth University, and is a former Fulbright Professor who remains active in the Fulbright Program. Clements has lived and worked in many countries around the World including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Ukraine. As an expert in international law, he approaches events in the World from a multidisciplinary and multi-cultural approach.

Michael Cronin, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Social Work. His research interests and publications are in international social work, health care and social policy, disaster management, social gerontology, international humanitarian law, social innovations, environmental justice, cultural competence, and diversity.

Cronin was a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine for the academic year 2019–2020. He was hosted by the National University of Kyiv – Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) and the Ukrainian National Red Cross Society. He developed and taught several courses including: Social Work in Emergencies, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Advanced International Social Work and the Environment. Several capacity-building projects were launched, including curriculum and faculty development and facilitation of a movement to build a national social work association in Ukraine. In addition to teaching, Cronin provided technical assistance for psychosocial support capacity building designed for affected populations of war and emergencies including support for staff and volunteers that are conducting this work with the Ukrainian Red Cross National Society Psychosocial Support Team. During the end of his time in Ukraine he supported both the University and Ukrainian Red Cross transition to online and virtual education, training, and psychosocial support.

Prior to taking this position in academia, Cronin worked as a social worker for over 18 years in New York City assisting individuals and families in a variety of settings. He serves in a leadership capacity to several domestic and international organizations.

Rekha Datta, Ph.D., holds the freed endowed chair in social sciences and is professor of political science at Monmouth University. From 2019–21, she served as the University’s interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Connecticut, and her M.A. and B.A. from Presidency University and Calcutta University. A 2020 finalist for the secretary of higher education in New Jersey, Datta is a 2017–18 U.S. senior Fulbright scholar, recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Award for Academic and Professional Excellence in Teaching and Research.

Datta is the founder and founding director of the Institute for Global Understanding at Monmouth University and initiated partnerships with the United Nations-DGC (NGO), the United Nations Academic Impact.

Datta is the author of “Contemporary India” (Routledge: 2018), “Beyond Realism: Human Security in India and Pakistan in the 21st Century” (Lexington Books, 2008, 2010), and “Why Alliances Endure: The United States-Pakistan Military Alliance”, 1954-1971 (South Asian Publishers, 1994). She is co-editor, with S. Sarsar, of “Inequality and Governance in an Uncertain World: Perspectives on Democratic and Autocratic Governments” (Lexington Books, Rowman Littlefield, 2023) and of “Democracy in Crisis Around the World” (Lexington Books, 2020). She has co-edited with J. Kornberg, “Women in Developing Countries: Assessing Strategies for Empowerment” (Lynne Rienner, 2002). 

Meg Forney, Ph.D., received her B.A. in psychology and Ph.D. in criminal justice from Temple University. Prior to joining the faculty at Monmouth, she worked as a research and reform specialist at the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission. There, she collected, analyzed, and prepared reports of county and state juvenile justice data, made recommendations regarding reform strategies, and trained/educated court staff, law enforcement, and community stakeholders in best practices of juvenile justice reform.

Tom Herrington, Ph.D., is the acting director of the Urban Coast Institute at Monmouth University and serves as the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium resilient communities and economies specialist. Herrington has over 35 years of experience in coastal resilience and hazard mitigation research, including the monitoring and analysis of coastal system changes to storm surge and wave impacts, and the analysis of nature-based solutions for community and ecosystem resilience to coastal storm impacts. Herrington serves on the boards of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, The Jersey Shore Partnership, and the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative, and is vice president of the Northeast Shore and Beach Preservation Association. Prior to joining Monmouth, Herrington was the director of the ocean engineering graduate program at Stevens Institute of Technology, and was the director of the New Jersey Coastal Protection Technical Assistance Service. Herrington holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in civil engineering, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in ocean engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Peter J. Jacques researches and teaches global environmental politics focusing on Indigenous thought, organized climate denial, marine and coastal politics and policy, and sustainability. 

Jiwon Kim, Ph.D. is an associate professor of curriculum and instruction. She was a researcher at the Korean governmental educational research institutes, where she participated in developing educational policy and national curriculum. At Monmouth University, Kim has been teaching and researching about educational foundations, social studies and interdisciplinary education, international and global sustainability education, for pre- and in-service teachers, while serving on the University’s various international and global education committees and as a faculty representative to the United Nations DPI-NGO and co-organizers of STAR international symposium, Sustainability Education Week conference, and the Climate Change Learning Collaborative (funded by the New Jersey Department of Education).

Bochen Li, Ph.D., is a lecturer of finance at Monmouth University. He received his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Cincinnati. His research interests are topics in corporate finance and international finance. He teaches undergraduate-level and MBA-level finance courses.    

Débora M Nunes is an assistant professor of economics at Monmouth University. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Colorado State University, where she also worked as an instructor and teaching assistant. Débora has a master’s degree in development economics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil) and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the same institution; she was also an invited student at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE, Mexico). Débora’s professional experiences include internships at the Central Bank of Brazil and at the Southern Brazil Regional Development Bank, and research assistantship for the Feminist Economics Journal. In the private sector, she owned a cultural production company and worked as a producer and professional dancer for several years. Her research interests and published work debate feminist economics, history of economic thought, Latin American studies, and macro political economy.

MyKellann Maloney joined Monmouth University in 2017 and is the head of the Global Education Office. MyKellann’s expertise in building strategic partnerships with international institutions has created safe, transformative, and academically rigorous programs. These partnerships have impacted many initiatives including study abroad, faculty-led programs, student exchange programs, and internship opportunities. The foundation of her work with international students is steeped in a commitment to diversity, inclusion, and cultural awareness.

Prior to joining Monmouth University, MyKellann created major-specific graduate and undergraduate programming that sent over 40% of the student population abroad in her role as director of the Global Studies Program at St. John’s University. MyKellann also acted as the founding director of NYU’s Graduate Program in Global Affairs, spending four years traveling with faculty to create their inaugural Faculty-Led Study Abroad Program. At the start of her career, she impacted a wide range of audiences through education of the arts, history, and photojournalism at some of New York City’s most notable cultural institutions such as The Brooklyn Children’s Museum, The Freedom Forum/Newseum NY, The Bard Graduate Center, and The Morgan Library.

Throughout her career in international education, she has partnered and traveled with faculty and students to create programming in a diverse range of countries including Canada, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Ghana, Italy, Israel, Jordan, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Russia, and Vietnam. She has also spent several years living, working, and studying abroad. As a study abroad student in England, she interned with the Education Department at Tate Britain. While working in Florence, Italy, MyKellann studied renaissance art, and while living in Paris, France, she created a thriving tour business for the arts. She spent significant time in the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey researching and evaluating early childhood and women’s educational programs for The Support for the Foundation of Women’s Work (part of KEDF), headquartered in Istanbul.

MyKellann is a member of Monmouth University’s Global Education Committee, an ex-officio member of the Institute for Global Understanding, and a member of Monmouth University’s Crisis Management Team.

Mihaela Moscaliuc, Ph.D., is a professor of English whose research and teaching focus on issues of immigration, colonialism and post-colonialism, transnationalism, global citizenship, borders, and empathy. Her scholarship includes articles on the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali, Shara McCallum, and Kimiko Hahn, and on code-switching and multilanguaging in contemporary writings. As a scholar within the field of Romani studies, she writes on issues of (self-) representation and cultural appropriation, and on various forms of exclusion and human rights abuses of Romani people.

Moscaliuc is also the author of four collections of poetry, including “Heartmoor” (forthcoming with Alice James Books in 2026) and “Cemetery Ink: (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021); two books of translations, including Liliana Ursu’s “Star and Clay” (Etruscan Press, 2019); editor of “Insane Devotion: On the Writing of Gerald Stern” (Trinity University Press, 2016), and co-editor of “Fruits of the Earth: Harvest Poems” (Knopf, 2025) and “Border Lines: Poems of Migration” (Knopf, 2020). In 2019, she curated, with poet Alicia Ostriker, “The New Colossus Translation Project,” which gathers translations of Emma Lazarus’s famous sonnet “The New Colossus” (1883) into over forty languages. Moscaliuc is a former Fulbright Scholar (Romania, 2015) and a Fulbright Program Advisor (FPA) for Monmouth University. 

Saliba Sarsar, Ph.D., professor of political science at Monmouth University, where he also served as associate vice president for global initiatives, associate dean in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and assistant dean for leadership initiatives. Born and raised in Jerusalem, his teaching and scholarly interests focus on the Middle East, Palestinian-Israeli affairs, Jerusalem, and peacebuilding. His most recent authored books are “Peacebuilding in Israeli-Palestinian Relations” (2020) and “Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts” (2018). His most recent edited book is “What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections” (2018). He is the guest editor of a special issue of the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, focusing on “Israel, Palestine, and the Prospects for Peace” (2020).

Sarsar was featured in several publications, including The New York Times, and is the recipient of several honors, including the Award of Academic Excellence from the American Task Force on Palestine, the Global Visionary Award and the Stafford Presidential Award of Excellence from Monmouth University, the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice, and the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation Award.

Sarsar received his B.A. in political science and history interdisciplinary, summa cum laude, from Monmouth University and his doctoral degree in political science from Rutgers University. He has received and/or directed several grants, including Fulbright, Kellogg, Dodge, GTE, and Peace Development Fund. Sarsar has been interviewed and/or quoted by a wide range of media outlets throughout the world including NBC News; New Jersey Network (“Inside Trenton” and “NJ Caucus”); Comcast (“Meet the Leaders”); Al-Jazeera; Voice of America (“Point of View”); Wisconsin Public Radio; Radio Jamaica (“Beyond the Headlines”); CFRB 1010 AM, Canada (“Toronto at Noon”); The New York Times; Seattle Times; Courier News; New Jersey Jewish News; The Star-Ledger; Two River Times; Asbury Park Press; and RIA Novosti.

Jennifer Shamrock, Ph.D., joined Monmouth University in 2004 as a lecturer in the Department of Communications. As a faculty member who teaches students in communication studies, one of the department’s three interest areas, she teaches foundational courses required of all majors such as Public Speaking, Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, and Critical Discourse, and also upper division courses such as Research Methods, and Gender, Race, and Media. She is the course coordinator for Intercultural Communication.

Prior to coming to Monmouth, Shamrock was a member of the Department of Speech Communication at Ithaca College. There, she developed and taught courses reflective of her ethnographic and rhetorical research with Holocaust survivors and historically marginalized co-cultures, such as Holocaust Narratives, and Narrative Performance. Many of these courses served as the catalyst for student performances held on campus and in the local community.

Shamrock received her Ph.D. in communication from Arizona State University. The interdisciplinary nature of her degree allowed her to draw upon research and coursework in history, religion, gender studies, and communication as she pursued her interest in holocaust studies. Her unique dissertation, “Constructing Collaboration, Collaborative Constructions: A Holocaust Survivor, Her Interviewer, and Their Relationship”, involves active collaboration with her participant and explores the complexities of bearing witness to a survivor’s testimony.

Shamrock has provided service to the University in a variety of contexts. She served as a cultural diversity specialist on GEOC, was a member of the Writing Committee, and served on the Honors School Faculty Council. Presently, she is Faculty Council’s recording secretary at full faculty meetings, and is a member of the Gender and Intersectionality Studies Executive Committee. Shamrock’s commitment to issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion is demonstrated through her contributions to the Global Understanding Convention, Monmouth’s annual Scholarship Week, and through her role as faculty advisor on a research project through the Living and Learning Community Summer Scholars program. As one of eight recipients of the award in its second year, she facilitated an investigation of how the #metoo movement is portrayed in popular media texts, entitled “The Depiction of #metoo in Men’s and Women’s Magazines: Concurrences and Contrasts.” Shamrock’s commitment to student success is reflected in her involvement as a faculty member in the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) at Monmouth, as she teaches a section of Public Speaking each summer as part of a five-week program that allows EOF students to transition to their undergraduate studies.

Shamrock has contributed to the Institute for Global Understanding through her participation in the annual week-long Global Understanding Convention. She served as chair of the conference in 2014 with the theme “Towards Global Equality: Education, Dignity, Prosperity”, and as co-chair in 2015 with the theme “Practicing Non-Violence in a Violent World”. During her tenure, Shamrock helped bring David Zirin, sports editor for The Nation magazine, and anti-death penalty advocate, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sister Helen Prejean to the conference as keynote speakers.

She is a member of the National Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, and New Jersey Communication Association (NJCA). She currently serves as an at-large member with NJCA. In addition to attending the conferences of her discipline, she also regularly attends conferences addressing issues of diversity, equity, power, race, and gender, such as The Privilege Institute’s annual White Privilege Conference.

Abha Sood has a Ph.D. in African American Literature from the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Sood received a Fulbright Fellowship to complete her dissertation on Toni Morrison’s fiction at Yale University. She has previously worked as an assistant professor at the University of Delhi, India, and worked as a copy editor, writer and editor for various publishers. Currently, Sood is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English where she teaches contemporary African American and World literature. Her research interests include African American, multiethnic, women’s, African, South Asian, postcolonial, and Australasian Aboriginal literature.

Recent publications include the essay “The Queen Mothers of Ghana: Maternal Activists for the 21st Century” in a special issue of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative; a chapter titled “Persistent Gender-based Social and Economic Inequalities in India,” in the textbook Inequality and Governance in an Uncertain World: Perspectives on Democratic and Autocratic Governments, edited by Professor Rekha Datta and Professor Saliba Sarsar, and published by Lexington Books in 2023; and reviews for the Journal of Critical Studies in Language and Literature. She has recently chaired sessions and presented at various conferences in her field, including the ALA, PCA/ACA, African Literature Association, and has served three times as the chair of the annual Toni Morrison Day organized by the Department of English.

In 2024, Sood also obtained her M.S. in mental health counseling from Monmouth University and is a Licensed Associate Counselor.

Cui Yu, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, School of Science. She joined Monmouth University in 2002. With an educational background in China and Singapore and years of engagement in the international academic community, Yu has gained extensive cross-cultural experience, developing a deep appreciation for global cultures and a strong understanding of multicultural perspectives. Her research interests focus on data management and projects with social and educational impact. At IGU, she will contribute to communication technologies and support, fostering meaningful cross-cultural interactions and promoting global connections within the academic environment.

Jing Zhou is a professor of art and design at Monmouth University. She joined the University in 2004 and prior to that time gained professional experiences in the film industry and prestigious design studios in the U.S. and China. Her award-winning work has been exhibited and published worldwide. Her work investigates our shared human experience, the pursuit of social and environmental justice, and global cultures. She is passionate in sharing her practice with students in graphic and interactive design classes and helped them to receive international recognition. Zhou continuously holds membership in the College Art Association and the Chinese-American Art Faculty Association. She has served as a juror for the Artists-in-Residence Program of the National Park and the Art Gallery Co-Chair of SIGGRAPH-Asia in Singapore.