Category: CID People

Rehana Paul Profile

CID PeopleRehana Paul is currently pursuing a BA in International Studies from the School of International Service at American University in Washington DC, as well as a BS in Business Administration from American University’s Kogod School of Business.

Rehana PaulRehana is serving as an intern at CID in 2020, creating and editing a series of video interviews and working on CID’s social media channels. She has worked in journalism, communications, and marketing since 2018, the same year she founded Overachiever Magazine. OM is a digital platform for Asian women that explores the world from Asian women’s perspective, covering everything from politics to fashion to activism to culture.

Rehana wants to apply her experience in communications to policy writing, and eventually work in the field at the intersection of conflict resolution, counterterrorism, diplomacy, and policy.

Work for CID: Rehana is an intern at CID, and is conducting interviews to post to the site, and to YouTube.

Linda J. de Wit Profile

CID People

Linda J. de Wit holds a BSc in Political Science, a BA in Philosophy, and an MA in Global Studies.

 

She is connected to CID as a graphic design consultant since 2020. In 2017 she completed an internship working on projects related to CID’s publications and visual identity.

Linda has worked in development, education, and graphic design, and enjoys photography and language learning. Having lived across four continents, though most of the time in the Middle East, she developed a broad interest in intercultural communication and dialogue.

She wrote her master’s thesis about the Egyptian community in Dubai – one of the most international places in the world – from the frameworks of transnationalism and social identity theory.

You can find her design work, photography, and articles she has written on her website LindaJW.com.

Work for CID:

Linda de Wit produced 13 of the 14 CID Posters, the poster for the 2018 video competition, the current CID brochure, CID letterhead, and prepared the layout and design for In Dialogue: CID Occasional Papers. She also designed the CID Report for the UNESCO Futures of Education initiative.

In addition, she wrote the guest post Andalusia’s ambivalence: Between convivencia and Islamophobia, and translated both KC1: Intercultural Dialogue and KC28: Postcolonialism into Dutch.

New Assistant to the Director of CID: Min He

CID People
CID has recently welcomed Min He as the new Assistant to the Director of the Center. Min is a Master’s student in Intercultural and International Communication at Royal Roads University in Canada. She is currently completing an internship through her work at CID. She will conduct a marketing research study on subscribers to the Center, translate several Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue and upgrade several aspects of CID’s presence on social media platforms. Min is excited to join the Center and learn new skills.

Min He photo

Min is originally from Beijing, China. She transferred two years of academic credits to Saint Mary’s University in Canada, completing her BA in English Literature there. During her undergraduate years, Min gained broad volunteer experience with international visitors, which led her to decide to pursue a graduate degree in Intercultural Communication.

 

Being an intercultural Communication practitioner, especially when the global economy is booming, means to effectively build conversations among different cultural groups. Min’s academic degrees have expanded her potential abilities in this field, as well as fundamentally oriented her future career path.

Min looks forward to contributing to CID and devoting her efforts to helping the Center foster good connections with subscribers as a result of learning more about who they are.

Tracy Wang CID Intern Profile

Tracy Wang is a graduate student in Intercultural Communication at Royal Roads University, Victoria. She graduated from Chongqing Foreign Trade and Business University in China, studying English education.

She fell in love with painting since a child and liked drawing pictures on the wall and white vase. She wants to use her imagination and hand to make a colorful life. Though she missed the chance to study art in University, she is mostly self-taught in software and never stop learning.

After graduating from the university in China, she went to Dubai for work. There she worked for a media company, successfully assisting in organizing Voice of China in Dubai and other big events. The job gave her opportunity to work on pictures. She helped the company designing posters and has gained much fun from advertising design. Since then she has decided to become a great graphic designer in the future. Now she is an art editor of RRU MAIIC Newsletter.

Her multicultural working environment in Dubai and special learning experience in Royal Roads University has enabled her to fully understand and respect the cultural difference. She believes that artworks is a common language that everyone knows, even when people are from different races.

NOTE: Tracy is one of several students completing small projects as interns for the CID this year. Her particular project is to work on the design of digital publications.

Crystal Guo CID Intern Profile

Crystal GuoCrystal Guo (in Chinese, Guo Bailing) is a student in the Master of Arts in International and Intercultural Communication at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Canada. Graduating from Tianjin Foreign Languages Studies University in China 2014, she majored in English (international journalism) for her bachelor’s degree. Having studied under an exam-oriented educational system, she has the courage to follow her heart and embrace the diversity of western cultures. Without biased judgment, she is able to understand people, regardless of their different races or religions and appreciate their merits.

In the process of following her dream to become a media worker, Crystal has actively tried to obtain diversified hands-on experiences through working as a support English teacher in poor western China and through participating in the Work and Travel USA Program in Grand Canyon Resort. She learns quickly and has compelling intellectual ability. She can grasp the essence of theoretical knowledge and apply it flexibly and practically. In addition to that, she has mastered good research techniques to review and assimilate large amounts of complex information in an efficient and effective manner.

NOTE: Crystal will be one of several students completing small projects as interns for the CID this year. Her particular project will be to to expand the database of international teaching opportunities. Look for expanded coverage in a few months!

Jana Simonis CID intern profile

Jana SimonisJana Simonis is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). Her academic research is located mostly within critical intercultural communication, postcolonial studies, critical communication pedagogy, and international student-centered research. In 2009, she graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Translation, Interpretation, and Cultural Studies from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. She attended SIUC as a foreign exchange student for a year before being admitted to the Master of Arts in Speech Communication in 2010. In 2012, she graduated with her Master’s degree and joined the program as a doctoral student.

Jana also has served on the board of the International Student Council at her university for two years in a row and currently holds the position of President. She has also worked on creating an Intercultural Relations position within the Speech Communication Organization of her department so that international students could get their voices, ideas, and concerns heard. In her capacity as an international student leader, she has worked hard to increase visibility and inclusivity of international students on her campus and the larger community.

Much of Jana’s research and professional experience focuses on building international relations and engaging in intercultural dialogue. She has come to truly appreciate this field of work and hopes to continue her efforts in a career that will allow her to engage in international relationship-building and intercultural dialogue.

NOTE: Jana’s project for CID will be to create a database on graduate student programs related to intercultural dialogue.

Pallas Zhang CID intern profile

Pallas ZhangPallas Zhang (in Chinese, Zhang Lidan) is a student in the Master of Arts in International and Intercultural Communication at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Canada. Graduating from Nanfang College of Sun-Yet San University in China 2014, she majored in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) for her bachelor’s degree. As a professional TCFL teacher required to know both western and Chinese culture very well, she became interested in discovering the psychological differences between people from different cultural backgrounds.

Lidan’s previous experience has included a study tour in the United States in 2011. Her most recent internship in a Global Chinese Learning Center allowed her to meet new people from different countries and to experience firsthand the collision of cultures.

Her research focuses on the differences between Chinese (Mandarin) and English languages and also Chinese vs. western cultures. She participated in writing an essay about the different meanings related to the color black in English and Chinese, and researched the title differences in these two languages. Her final thesis, “The contrast study of Chinese and English greeting” also related to intercultural dialogue.

NOTE: Pallas will be one of several students completing small projects as interns for the CID this year. Her particular project will be to expand the database of centers and organizations with similar missions. Look for expanded coverage in a few months!

 

CID Welcomes the New Assistant to the Director

CID has recently welcomed Minh Cao, a graduate student in Communication at Villanova University, as the Assistant to the Director of the Center. Minh is currently in the second year of her academic program, working on her Master’s dissertation while assisting the Director with website content management. She is excited to be part of the project, especially when her personal and academic backgrounds show great connections to the work of the Center.

Minh grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam, where she spent 18 years before embarking on her academic journeys in the U.S. Having vastly enjoyed her conversation with one of the Villanova’s ambassadors who was at a college fair in Vietnam, Minh decided to pursue her undergraduate degree at Villanova University. She chose Global Interdisciplinary Studies (GIS) as her major, the name of which often causes inquiring looks from others. One can simply understand GIS as the studies of a perspective that embodies interrelating disciplines in regarding, comprehending and accessing global matters. GIS has, in many ways, complimented Minh’s academic endeavor in Communication, as the latter turns out to have much of the same nature as her previous degree.

Minh looks forward to contributing to CID and hopes that she can provide additional help in fostering the mission of the Center.