CIHE February 2026
CIHE Executive Committee Update
Hello CIHE friends and colleagues!
Happy New Year! I hope you are having a wonderful spring semester so far, and that you and your loved ones are staying safe and warm during this exceptional winter weather across the country.
Our executive team has already been busy planning several exciting events and programs leading up to our next in-person ASHE conference in November in Puerto Rico. A few highlights to look forward to this year include webinars featuring the Spencer Foundation–funded research project report on African refugee students, support for international student parents, the 2025 CIHE Best Article Award, the CIHE Mentoring and Networking Program, the International Scholars Workshop, and many other outstanding events.
We continue to advance our goals of building a stronger and more inclusive CIHE community; collaborating beyond CIHE with other associations (e.g., ACPA, AERA, NASPA, and CIES) and other ASHE councils; defining who we are as CIHE; and ensuring strong, meaningful connections beyond the ASHE conference. This work is only possible with your support and involvement, so please feel free to reach out to the executive team with suggestions or feedback on how we can collectively advance these goals this year.
The CIHE executive team deeply appreciates your continued support and contributions to our community. Thank you for your involvement, and we wish you and your loved ones a wonderful 2026.
Warm regards,
Katie Koo, PhD
Recap from the ASHE CIHE Pre-Conference
By: Dr. Hyejin Tina Yeo and Dr. Charles Mathies, 2025 CIHE Pre-conference co-chairs
To mark ASHE’s 50th anniversary, the CIHE Pre Conference began with a keynote from Dr Amy Scott Metcalfe called “Hanging by Threads: Encountering Transnationalism in Chiharu Shiota’s Home Less Home.” Dr Metcalfe discussed transnationalism as both a way to analyze and a goal for scholarship, encouraging us to look beyond national boundaries in higher education. She highlighted artist Chiharu Shiota’s installation Home Less Home (2025) as a way to think about movement, belonging, and what home means to us. Dr Metcalfe invited us to reflect on our own paths and to rethink our hopes for internationalization in higher education.
The CIHE Pre Conference featured one interactive symposium, 15 Research and Scholarly Papers presentations across 9 sessions, and 9 presentations in the Works in Progress session. Across sessions, presenters and discussants generated rich critical dialogue on international higher education, with particular attention to transnational conditions, inequities, and the politics of knowledge production. The interactive symposium, in particular, created space for connection and shared reflection among international scholars amid the challenging moment facing US higher education. Participants listened closely to one another, shared collective insight, and explored how critical transnational research can help us navigate this moment with purpose.
A key takeaway from this year’s gathering is that solidarity requires ongoing care and intention. As we continue building CIHE as an intellectual home, we will remain attentive to inclusion, uneven risk, and the different constraints scholars face across location, status, and institutional context. CIHE will continue to offer this kind of generative space for connection and exchange at the 2026 ASHE Annual Meeting in Puerto Rico. Please consider submitting your work, and we look forward to connecting with you there.
ASHE CIHE Social in Denver
Thank you to everyone who attended our ASHE CIHE Social in Denver, and special thanks to the University of Georgia for their generous support. We look forward to gathering in person again in Puerto Rico!
ASHE International Scholars Workshop Social in Denver
Thank you to everyone who attended our ASHE CIHE International Scholars Workshop Coffee Hour (with actual coffee & bagels this time) in Denver, and special thanks to the dream team of International Scholars Workshop Co-chairs. The International Scholars Workshop team will host the coffee hours on Saturday morning of ASHE 2026 again. We look forward to gathering in person again in Puerto Rico!
Congratulations to Our New ASHE CIHE Executive Committee Members!
Congratulations to our new Members-at-Large Dr. Milad Mohebali from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Dr. Marisa Lally from Georgia Southern University. They began their tenure at the 2025 ASHE conference. Welcome on board!
Vice chair
Dr. Mary Ann Bodine Al-Sharif, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Hello! Greetings from UAB in Birmingham, Alabama! I currently serve as an associate professor of higher education in the department of human studies. I greatly treasure my time with CIHE and our members who are part of my academic family! I am looking forward to serving this community as Vice Chair and most importantly, I am looking forward to sharing experiences and learning together!
Member-at-Large
Dr. Milad Mohebali, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Greetings, from Lincoln, NE, where I am currently working as an assistant professor in the educational administration department. CIHE and its members have grown to be more than colleagues and scholars to me and I am excited for the opportunity to serve this community in my role. 
Member-at-Large
Dr. Marisa Lally, Georgia Southern University
Hello CIHE community! I am an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University and I have been a member of CIHE since 2020. I am excited to serve as a CIHE member-at-large and continue to foster community among kind and thoughtful scholars.
Thank you to our Outgoing Committee Members!
HUGE thanks to our outgoing executive members listed below. You’ve made a big impact on the ASHE community the last few years. We hope you’ll stay involved in ASHE CIHE in other ways!
Past Chair
Dr. Christina Yao, Associate Professor and Program Director, University of South Carolina
Member-at-Large
Dr. Mary Ann Bodine Al-Sharif, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Member-at-Large
Dr. Shinji Katsumoto, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
2025 CIHE Best Article Award
Yin, P. (2024). The coloniality of internationalization: towards a power-conscious framework for studying the experiences of international students in Western contexts. Studies in Higher Education, 50(9), 1995–2010. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2407940
In this article, Dr. Yin explores the experiences of international students in higher education contexts that are shaped by colonial power relations. Dr. Yin develops a power-conscious framework that is used to explain the international student colonial power entanglement.
The framework highlights the importance of situating inquiries of international students within the broader context of the lived realities of marginalized communities in settler-colonial states. Through the development of this power-conscious framework, Dr. Yin’s research contributes to advancing a transformative understanding of international student experiences and provides an avenue for engaging with internationalization in a more equitable and inclusive manner.
2026 CIHE Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education
2026 Award Nominations will open in early May and closes approximately late June
Applications for the 2026 awards will be accepted from scholarships published between June 1, 2025 – May 31, 2026. Nominations must be a) Books and Edited Books; and b) Journal Articles, Chapters, Research Initiatives, or Other Research. Dissertations are not eligible for nomination for this award.
2026 Research and Discussion Webinar
We will be offering a series of webinars in 2026 that will focus on relevant and critical issues within international higher education. This will be led by our ASHE CIHE members who will share their research and facilitate discussion among the participants.
Upcoming Webinars
Maximizing Your Conference Experience Through Professional Development and Networking at ACPA, ASHE, and CIES as International Scholars
Thursday, Feb 26, 9:00 am-10:00am Pacific Time
Panelists: Drs. Katie Koo (ASHE), Mary Ann Bodine Al-Sharif (ACPA), & Gerado Blanco (CIES)
Register Here
Panel discussions and community-building for CIHE Members with dependent(s)
Let’s gather with graduate students and early-career scholars with dependents! Join a panel discussion with scholars who share similar experiences, and take this opportunity to meet, connect, and have meaningful conversations with others navigating scholarly life with dependents.
Thursday, March 26, 2026, 9:00 - 10:00 am Pacific time
Register Here
Networking Roundtables Program
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 9:00 am - 11: 30 am Pacific time
Registration Opening Soon
Other Professional Development and Academic Opportunities
Forum on Education Abroad 20th Annual Conference
February 11-12, 2026 – Virtual
March 11-13 2026 – Nashville, Tennessee
Comparative and International Education Society
March 28 - April 1, 2026 – San Francisco, CA, United States
American Educational Research Association
April 8-12, 2026 - Los Angeles, California, United States
WES-CIHE Summer Institute
June 2-3, 2026 - Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, United States
Recent CIHE Member Publications
Bodine Al-Sharif, M., Koo, K., & Bista, K. (2025). International graduate students: Unique stories and missing voices in higher education. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 181, 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20616
Bowling, R. L. (2025). “They don’t even know how ethnocentric they’re being”: Comparative approaches to worldview diversity education. Journal of Studies in International Education, First published online February 6, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/10283153251316925
Broton, K. M., Mohebali, M., & O’Neill, K. B. (2025). The Power of Partnerships: Field Experiments for Translational Impact in Higher Education. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2025.2609109
Cruz, N. I., & Whatley, M. (2024). Domestic Study Away in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, 95(5), 1099-1130. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543241279296 (Original work published 2025)
Fei, M. (2025). Practice implications for supporting international students’ racial learning in the US. Critical Internationalization Studies Review, 4(1).
George Mwangi, C. A., Yao, C. W., Harshe, G., & Corso, A. R. (2025). It’s Just Too Much: Narratives of International Educators Navigating COVID-19. The Journal of Higher Education, 96(5), 857–881. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2024.2378643
George Mwangi, C. A. & Santana, Y. R. (Eds.). (2025). (Re) Framing College Access by and with Communities of Color: Our Knowledge, Our Process, Our Choice. State University of New York Press.
Hou, M. (2025). ‘Where are you from?’: examining identity and racism among Asian American and Asian international students. Studies in Higher Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2025.2552823
Hou, M., Le, T. T. K., & Mushfiq, M. (2025). Intersecting identities of three Asian transnational women doctoral students: a critical collaborative autoethnography. Higher Education, 1–16.
Jenkins, Z., & Yao, C. (2025). A critique of race-neutrality discourse among internship benefits: a critical discourse analysis. Education+ Training, 67(2), 171–183.
Katsumoto, S. (2025). Not All the Same: An Analysis of Diverse Help-Seeking Patterns among International Students. Journal of Global Higher Education, 1(1), 159-185.
Katsumoto, S. (2025). Typology of academic engagement among Asian American students: Critical quantitative approach with latent class analysis. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
Kaya‐Kasikci, S., Glass, C. R., Camero, E. C., & Minaeva, E. (2025). University Positioning in AI Policies: Comparative Insights From National Policies and Non‐State Actor Influences in China, the European Union, India, Russia, and the United States. Higher Education Quarterly, 79(4), e70062.
Koo, K., Bista, K., & Al-Sharif, M. A. B. (2025). “From surviving to thriving” next steps for international graduate students: A call to action. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 181, 91–99. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20623
Koo, K. (2025). Culturally sensitive support beyond borders: Internationalization of student affairs practice. In Tolman, S. & Calhoun, D. (eds). Student Affairs - Voices from the Profession. Information Age Publishing.
Lee, J.H., Kim, M. & Koo, K. (2025). Profiling personality factors predicting academic achievement: insights from a diverse student sample. Social Psychology of Education, 28 (131). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-025-10050-8
Mwangi, C. A. G., & Yao, C. W. (2025). A Letter to the Editors: What Can Critical Mean to International Education Praxis?. Journal of Global Higher Education, 1(1), 10–19.
Olson, T. H., Hong, S., & Renn, K. A. (2026). Training, Trust, and Terabytes: Absorptive Capacity for Data Analytics at Research Universities. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 63(1), 73–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2025.2505852
Patterson, J., Whatley, M., & Kelly, A. (2025). To All the Nations of the World: A Postcolonial Analysis of Protestant Christian-oriented Study Abroad Programs. Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education, 17(1), 105–123.
Shahjahan, R. A. (2025). Unpacking the velcro of ‘Internationalisation’: the nation-state ontology and its implications for global higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1–13.
Yoon, J., & Koo, K. (2025). Enhancing Early Childhood Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions of Teaching Science-Technology-Society (STS) through a Project-based Interdisciplinary Approach, International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology, 13(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijemst.4333.
Whatley, M., Aldrich, C., & De Angelis, A. (2025). Indications of Community College Virtual International Exchange Outcomes: Global Perspective-Taking and Self-Efficacy. Journal of Studies in International Education, 29(1), 100–124.
Whatley, M., Labs, K., & Wood, D. R. (2025). International Education for Low-Income Students: Virtual Exchange and the Academic Success Among Pell-Recipient Community College Students. Community College Review, 53(2), 262–280.