Speakers

Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

To be announced

  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    IAFOR, Japan
  • Albane Buriel
    Albane Buriel
    University Rennes 2, France
  • Michael Menchaca
    Michael Menchaca
    University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, United States
  • Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
    Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
    Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria
  • Darrel Toulon
    Darrel Toulon
    Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria

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At IAFOR, we are committed to delivering exceptional conferences that inspire and challenge academics and professionals from around the world. Since 2009 over 50,000 academics have chosen to present their research at our conferences. To ensure we offer the best content possible, we rely on established plenary speakers to share their insights, experience, and ideas with our diverse audience.

Excellent plenary speakers are central to our conferences, ensuring that timely, innovative and engaging content is presented to our audiences around the world. If you would like to be considered for a speaking slot at one of our conferences, please apply below.

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Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past SEACE conferences via the links below.

SEACE2025 SEACE2024
SEACE2023 SEACE2021 SEACE2020
Anne Boddington
IAFOR, Japan

Biography

Professor Anne Boddington is Executive Vice-President and Provost of IAFOR, and oversees the academic programs, research and policies of the forum.

Anne Boddington is Professor Emerita of Design Innovation and has held executive and senior leadership roles in Higher Education including as Dean of Arts & Humanities at the University of Brighton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Middlesex University.

In 2022, she concluded chairing the Sub Panel (32) for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and has extensive experience in the governance and conduct of peer review, research evaluation and assessment in REF2014 (Sub Panel Deputy Chair and Equality Diversity Advisory Panel [EDAP]) and RAE2008. A former member of AHRC’s Advisory Board, she is the current Chair of the Advisory Board for the UKRI’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) programme (£30M), Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the Design Council, the government’s strategic advisor for design, and a member of both the InnoHK Scientific Committee (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).

Since the 1990’s Anne has worked across the UK and internationally with a wide range of quality assurance, professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and India.

As an independent consultant she now works as a strategic advisor and mentor and is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice, developing effective governance, supporting career development, reducing bureaucracy, and improving organisational design, integrity, and productivity in the changing workplace.

Panel Presentation (2026) | TBA
Albane Buriel
University Rennes 2, France

Biography

Dr Albane Buriel is an associate researcher in Education Sciences at University Rennes 2, France, within the Centre for Research on Education, Learning and Didactics (CREAD), and the founder and president of Art to Face, an international NGO dedicated to culture and arts education in emergency, conflict, and post-conflict settings. Her work lies at the intersection of research, humanitarian practice, and cultural action. She specialises in arts-based approaches across mental health and psychosocial support, education, and community participation, examining how artistic and cultural practices can support agency, recognition, collective meaning-making, and social cohesion in contexts of violence and displacement.

Dr Buriel has conducted multi-sited fieldwork in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Eastern Europe, working alongside local communities, artists, educators, NGOs, and international organisations. Her research draws on ethnographic and participatory methodologies, including participant observation, arts-based and biographical devices, and collaborative knowledge production.

She teaches humanitarian action, MHPSS, and arts-based education in several universities. Her work critically examines both the potential and the ethical tensions of arts-based practice, including questions of power, representation, emotional exposure, care, and sustainability. Through Art to Face, she is currently developing the International Observatory on Culture and Arts Education in Crisis and Post-Conflict Contexts.

Keynote Presentation (2026) | Arts in Crisis Settings: Rethinking Health, Education and Protection
Michael Menchaca
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, United States

Biography

Dr Michael Menchaca is a Professor at the Department of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, United States. He specialises in distance education, and has designed, implemented, and coordinated online and hybrid programmes for over 20 years. He was an IT specialist for many years in the public and private sector. As an educator, he teaches and conducts research in the areas of online learning, technology integration, and social justice with technology. He currently serves as editor for the IAFOR Journal of Education: Technology in Education Edition.

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria

Biography

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein is cultural manager, curator, and author at the interface of fine art, media art, design, architecture and ecology, climate, regeneration as well as digitalisation and artificial intelligence / superintelligence. He is Artistic Director of the Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria.

After studying law, political science, and history of art at the University of Vienna, Austria, Dr Thun-Hohenstein worked for the Austrian Foreign Ministry and held posts in Abidjan, Geneva, and Bonn. He was Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York from 1999 to 2007. From 2022 to 2025, he was Director General for International Cultural Relations at the Austrian Foreign Ministry. From 2007 to 2011, he served as Managing Director of departure, the Creative Industries.

Agency of the City of Vienna. Dr Thun-Hohenstein also served as General Director and Artistic Director of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna from 2011 to 2021. He then founded the Vienna Biennale for Change, which he directed from 2014 until 2022. Most recently, he initiated the Vienna Climate Biennale and chaired the Advisory Board of the Vienna Climate Biennale.

Dr Thun-Hohenstein has published several books. His most recent book, Zukunftsmutig (Kremayr & Scheriau 2026, in German), was released earlier this year.

Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA
Darrel Toulon
Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria

Biography

Darrel Toulon is an artistic researcher, practitioner, and educator at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria. He is also a cultural manager, an artist supported by Arts and Health Austria, and the Founding Artistic Director of 'the alpha group’, based in Vienna. His projects align with the university's Third Mission, addressing issues such as the consequences of migration and war, intersectionality and identity, and long-term unemployment. His primary area of research is the development of docu-dance-theatre as a transdisciplinary tool using participatory artistic interventions for personal growth, trauma transformation, and societal change, with marginalised, stigmatised, and silenced populations.

Toulon has headed projects in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Uganda, and was a featured artist at Künstlerhaus Wien (SUBSTANZ Exhibition, 2024-25). Other international projects include the intergenerational/interethnic Peace-Building with Performance Arts Residency at Mindanao State University, Philippines. His projects also target young adults with migration backgrounds and NEET status, and individuals living with their Lebensborn family inheritance.

In 2002, he was awarded the First Austrian Dance Production Special Prize. His community dance project “THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR” (2015), created with unaccompanied minor refugees residing in Graz, Austria, was nominated for Place of Respect 2016. He was awarded the Styrian Golden Cross of Honour in 2016.

Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA