On Wednesday, April 6, 2022, from noon-1 p.m. Central Daylight Time, the Spring 2022 International Seminar Series, ISU International Engagement, will highlight Management Development International (MDI), a unit within the Office of International Engagement that has been providing training to government and business leaders from around the world since 2002. Dr. Abdourahmane Thiam, associate director, MDI and Mouna Bounouader, program coordinator, will provide an overview of MDI. They will be joined by two former participants: Yaa Adubia Yeboah and Joseph Anelus. This zoom webinar is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required to receive the link.
Thiam’s areas of expertise include research methods, production economics, farm management, development economics, project monitoring and evaluation, and public sector governance. His academic training is in applied economics and development. He holds a B.S. in statistics from the National School of Applied Economics (ENEA, Dakar – Senegal), an M.S., and a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Connecticut.
Thiam has been training coordinator and assistant to the director of the Institute of Public Service International (IPSI), University of Connecticut. He taught and coordinated trainings in research methods and computer use in research, and management and program/project monitoring and evaluation. He has been a senior project associate for the Peanut Collaborative Research and Support Program (PCRSP), Office of International Affairs, University of Connecticut.
Bounouader earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from AL Akhawayn University in Ifrane Morocco, majoring in finance and minoring in mathematics. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester abroad at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She joined Illinois State University in 2017 for an M.S. in mathematics—applied statistics. She was offered a graduate assistantship position with MDI, and upon completing her degree in 2019, was hired as the MDI program coordinator. Bounouader is now working on her Ph.D. in educational administration and foundations higher education administration here at Illinois State.
Anelus participated in the MDI Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Projects program in October 2017 while working as a project analyst in the Ministry of Planification and External Cooperation in Haiti. He is now a graduate assistant in MDI while working on an M.S. in financial economics.
Yeboah was serving as the bilingual secretary in the Ministry of Finance in her home country of Ghana when she participated in the MDI Human Resource Management July 2019 cohort. Yeboah is now an MDI graduate assistant while enrolled in the Illinois State MSW child and family practice program.
The International Seminar Series is presented by the Office of International Studies and Programs and features a theme each semester. The Spring 2022 series, ISU International Engagement, is focusing on the wide variety of international activities which connect the ISU community to those around the world.
Anyone with questions or requiring an accommodation to participate fully should contact InternationalSeminar@ilstu.edu or 309-438-1651.
