About Us

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Dr. Rebecca Granato, Principal Investigator, Director

Rebecca Granato is the Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives at Bard College and Program Director for the Open Society University Network’s Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives (Hubs) in Eastern Africa and the MENA region. Dr. Granato’s work focuses on developing and delivering contextualized, learner-centred learning experiences in undergraduate courses, teacher professional development and research-oriented training in places affected by crisis and displacement for refugees, internally displaced people and those in the host communities. She has also been an Associate of Bard College’s Institute for Writing & Thinking since 2004, in which capacity she has developed and delivered teacher professional development in places as far reaching as Myanmar, Jordan and Kyrgyzstan, among others. Following undergraduate and graduate studies at Bard College, Exeter College, Oxford, and CUNY, she received her PhD in Global History from the intercampus program based at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. 

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Dr. Kerry Bystrom, Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom earned a BA, summa cum laude, in English/Creative Writing and Government from Dartmouth College (1999) and a PhD in English from Princeton University (2007). Awards for her doctoral research on cultural responses to dictatorship in Latin America and apartheid in South Africa include Princeton’s Charlotte Elizabeth Proctor Honorific Fellowship and an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council (USA). Before arriving at Bard College Berlin in 2012, she taught at Princeton University, Bard College, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Connecticut, where she was also director of the Research Program on Humanitarianism at the Human Rights Institute. She teaches at the intersection of aesthetics and politics, and on topics ranging from postcolonial studies (theory, literature, performance and visual art) and African and world literature to trauma and memory studies, human rights, and humanitarianism.

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Nick Sabato, Co-Principal Investigator

Nick Sabato, Director of Country Programs for Education for Humanity at Arizona State University, has over a decade of experience in higher education and international development with specific instances working in refugee communities, managing international education programs in conflict-affected areas and developing university strategy for launching global initiatives.   
Nick currently leads ASU’s efforts in extending educational access to refugees, displaced and communities affected by displacement in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa through user-centric and partnership-driven connected learning programs. He leads operational efforts with the UN Refugee Agency, humanitarian agency partners and government representatives in developing collaborative programs that prepare learners to meet their educational ambitions. His educational background includes an MA in International Relations from American University’s School of International Service and a BS in Psychology from Miami University (OH).

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Joanna Zimmerman

Joanna began her career as a Kindergarten and later First Grade Teacher at an elementary school in Washington, DC. From there, she went on to work closely with public schools across the nation in survey development and implementation in the areas of school climate, employee and student engagement, as well as college-readiness. In this capacity, she aided in district efforts to promote collaboration with stakeholders to achieve a more informed and inclusive decision-making process. At the National Association of Independent Schools, Joanna helped school leadership teams understand how to strategically collect and use critical data points to improve school operations.

Joanna earned a Bachelor’s in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, with a Secondary concentration in Economics. She also earned an Ed.M in Technology, Innovation, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is excited to join EdPlus at ASU and pursue her lifelong passion of improving equity and access in education.