International faculty have expanded our understanding of the world. They bring expertise, diverse teaching methods, and global mindsets to our intellectual communities. Here, four international faculty members share how their lived experiences have shaped their research, teaching, and cultural perspectives.
Research with a global lens
Emmanuel Bonney’s journey to the United States was an organic process, he says. Originally from Ghana, Bonney met his mentor, Institute of Child Development (ICD) Professor Jed Elison through a mutual colleague while he was earning his doctorate degree at the University of Cape Town. “The first time I spoke with him, I knew he would probably be a good mentor,” Bonney says.
A subsequent U of M postdoctoral fellowship brought Bonney to ICD in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. “What was important to me in choosing ICD as my postdoc home was its enviable reputation and my mentor’s strong scientific credentials,” he says. “I was genuinely interest ed in the research that was going on in his lab and knew I would be supported to do work I’m passionate about, explore new ideas, build meaningful connections, and grow as a scientist.”
Now an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology, Bonney’s international experiences and perspectives have shaped his research and teaching in many ways.
As a teacher, being able to share his international experiences helps Bonney bring life to concepts, he says. “When I teach motor development to our kinesiology major students, being able to share stories of firsthand experiences, and tell them about how different cultural practices shape developmental outcomes enrich their learning experiences and make them see more of a globally representative picture of motor development to the often simplistic one they read about in textbooks,” he says.
Shared international experiences
Nana Kim’s field of research is psychometrics, an area of psychology focused on testing and measurement. As she was studying for her master’s degree in Korea, she realized that all of the state-of-the-art research was being done either in Europe or the U.S. “Most of the leading scholars and researchers were in the U.S. and I really wanted to work with them and learn from them,” she says. Kim earned her PhD in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In the fall of 2022, Kim joined CEHD, where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology.
“As an international faculty member, I’ve been in the shoes of the international students when I was studying for my PhD, so I think I know a lot of the difficulties they might have,” she says. “Because I have that experience, I try my best to understand their circumstances or difficulties and try to support them in their learning as much as I can. And because I’m an international person, I try to appreciate and respect all the diversity in the community and try to understand the differences in students’ backgrounds when I teach.”
Being a role model
Ka I Ip is the first in his family who had the chance to study abroad. Coming from Macau to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, he focused on psychology. “I really just wanted to have a better education, and I was thinking about being a psychologist,” he says.
But being an international student changed his outlook. “Coming here really broadened my perspective, especially coming from a country that has very different cultural values, practices, and traditions. It opened up how I perceive the world and how it might differ from people who are not from my cultural background,” he says.
Ip found himself pivoting from only being a clinical psychologist to becoming more interested in research. Now an assistant professor in the Institute of Child Development since 2023, he studies how culture influences emotion regulation and behaviors. He is also the director of the DANCE (Developmental Affective Neuroscience, Culture, and Environment) Lab.
“I’m really lucky to have research opportunities that involve culture,” he says, noting that his interest in that topic is what drew him into a PhD.
“I’m more mindful of cultural sensitivity,” he explains. “I was a majority in my country and here I’m an ethnic and racial minority. That changed how I think about identities, about race and racism. And that translates into all the things that I do now, including research and teaching.”
An inclusive mindset
Ronald Asiimwe says his impetus to come to study couple and family therapy,” he explains. “My main goal really was to be able to have the research and clinical skills to transform family and relationship dynamics back on the continent of Africa, starting with my home country, Uganda.”
After receiving his PhD in human development and family studies, with a specialization in couple and family therapy from Michigan State University, he joined the faculty of the Department of Family Social Science in CEHD as an assistant professor.
“Being an international faculty member has profoundly influenced how I teach and conduct research,” he says.
Asiimwe’s research focuses on understanding the mental and relational well-being of African families wherever they are.
“Here in Minnesota, I work with the African immigrant population and then over on the continent of Africa, in countries like Kenya and Uganda,” he says. “Most of these communities have endured generations of trauma stemming from various sources—war, organized violence, and poverty. My work really takes a multicultural perspective to explore how we can design culturally responsive solutions to help these families heal from trauma. Being an international faculty has helped me to see that culture shapes our perceptions of health and well-being.”
Read the full story, originally published by the College of Education and Human Development.
