Organization

Mingzhou Zhang from China earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Affairs Management from the Shanghai International Studies University and later worked in the Overseas Department of the China Youth Travel Service and as a Civil Servant at the Asia Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2003 he joined CBBY as Deputy Secretary General. He was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee from 2008 to 2012 and was the 2012 Chair of the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award. He was elected to the IBBY EC again in 2014 and served as IBBY Vice-President from 2016-18.

He was the organizer of the 30th IBBY World Congress held in Macau, China in 2006. Until 2018 Mingzhou Zhang was the General Manager of the CCPPG (Chinese Children’s Press and Publications Group) International division. He is a board director of China Publishers Association and Executive Vice President of China Children’s Literature Research Society.

E-mail: mingzhouzhang68yeah.LÖSCHEN.net

Anastasia Arkhipova from Russia graduated from the Moscow State Academy of Fine Arts and has been a member of the Moscow Union of Artists since 1986 and a member of Russian IBBY since 2005. She has illustrated many books for children, among them the fairy tales of Grimm and Andersen. In 2010 she received a medal from the Moscow Union of Artists for her creative work. She has served on several international juries, including the BIB Jury in 2007, 2009 and 2015, the Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours Jury in 2013, 2015, and 2017, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury for the 2012 and 2014 Awards. She was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee from 2006 to 2010 and was re-elected in 2016 and is IBBY Vice President for the term 2018-2020.

Email: arkhipova.agmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Carole Bloch from South Africa is currently the Executive Director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa – PRAESA – an independent research and development unit affiliated with the University of Cape Town. Its offshoot Nal’ibali applies her groundbreaking research in children's literacy in multilingual environments on the ground. She has produced many publications including the creation of 16 Little Hands books for babies in 2014 – the first books for babies in all 11 of South Africa’s official languages. Under her leadership PRAESA received the 2014 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award and a year later PRAESA became the 2015 laureate of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) for children’s literature and reading promotion.  She was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee in 2016 and is IBBY Vice President for the term 2018-2020.

Email: carole.praesagmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Hasmig Chahinian from France was born and grew up in Lebanon. She earned a PhD in children’s literature from the University Paris 13 and is currently in charge of children’s literature from the Arab World at the international division of the French National Centre for Children’s Literature – Centre national de la littérature pour la jeunesse - La Joie par les livres – a service of the French National Library. She collaborates with various publications and works on promoting reading and children’s literature in France and abroad and organizes and holds training sessions for professionals around the world. She has served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2010 to 2014 – from 2012 as Vice President.  She was re-elected to the IBBY Executive Committee in 2016. 

Email: hasmig.chahinianbnf.LÖSCHEN.fr

Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran is currently Director of the Institute for Research on the History of Children's Literature in Iran, coordinating several major programmes, including Childhood Studies in Iran. She leads the major reading promotion project Read with Me, which was one of the recipients of the 2016 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award. She has both written and translated in the fields of children's literature and the promotion of reading. She was a member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury in 2002 and 2004 and was elected Jury President for the 2008 and 2010 Awards. She was also a member of the Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours Jury for the 2013, 2015, and 2017 awards. She was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee in 2016.  

Email: zghaenigmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Sophie Hallam from the UK has over ten years’ experience in children’s publishing and literacy promotion and has been a member of IBBY UK’s Executive Committee since 2013. She currently works as the Commissioning Editor for Tiny Owl Publishing in London, UK, focusing on books that broaden perspectives and introduce artistic and literary traditions from around the world. She completed a MA degree in children’s literature and a postgraduate certificate in English Education at the University of Roehampton, UK in 2012, with her research focused on multicultural children’s literature and the wider socio-political and economic issues surrounding publishing, diversity and representation. She has spent a number of years developing literacy and art initiatives as a means to empower children, young people and adults through various charities in the UK.

Email: editoribby.org.LÖSCHEN.uk

Basarat Midhat Kazim from Pakistan is responsible for the growth of the Alif Laila Book Bus Society from a children’s library to an entire educational ethos. Since 1978 she has been advocating the importance of books and reading for children and has worked on setting up children’s libraries, mobile libraries, reading corners and early childhood centres in public and private schools. She set up Busti Schools in squatter colonies in Lahore in 1990, and made them into activity-based learning centres where children learned through book projects and fun. She is currently working on three new projects: establishing 10 children’s libraries; assisting the Government of Punjab to design colourful and cost effective early childhood centres in public schools, and organizing play therapy training sessions for teachers.

Email: bmk_alyahoo.LÖSCHEN.com

Ahmad Redza Ahmad Khairuddin from Malaysia is currently managing Cerdik Publications, an educational publishing company that produces quality curriculum books for pre-schools, primary and secondary schools. He is a council member of the National Book Council Malaysia, the umbrella body for the book industry overseeing policy and development of the industry as a whole. He is also actively involved in the Malaysian publishing industry as a publisher and promoter of reading and literacy programmes. He sits on several committees led by the Government looking into improvements to policies and practices in the national book industry. He is currently the President of MBBY and served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2006-08, as Vice President from 2008-10. He was elected as IBBY President from 2010-14.

Email: aredzagmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Shereen Kreidieh from Lebanon has a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education from the American University in Beirut, a Teaching Diploma in Early Childhood Education from the Lebanese American University, a Masters in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey Roehampton, and a PhD in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University. She established and manages Asala Publishers that produces high quality children’s books in Arabic in 1998. She was a member of the Book and Reading Promotion comity in the ministry of culture in Lebanon. Currently she is the president of Lebanese Board of Books for Young Children and was a member of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury. In September 2018 she began teaching children's literature in Haigazian University in Lebanon.

Email: sharshar55hotmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Nora Lía Sormani from Argentina has a BA degree from the University of Buenos Aires and is co-host of the National Radio Programme Postales Argentinas (Argentine Postcards) and a member of the research team at the Area Arts Cultural Centre of Cooperation and directs the Area Children’s Theatre Studies. She is a researcher at the Institute of Arts of the Spectacle in Theatre for Children and Puppets at the University of Buenos Aires and member of the Chair of Latin American and Caribbean Reading and Writing based in Cuba. She has published in Argentina and abroad about literature for children. She was a member of the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury in 2012 and has been actively involved in IBBY Argentina for two decades.

Email: noraliasorhotmail.LÖSCHEN.com

Sylvia Vardell from the USA is a professor of children’s literature at Texas Woman’s University and served as USBBY President in 2006. In 2017, she was awarded the USBBY Alida Cutts Lifetime Membership Award in recognition of her contributions to children’s literature. She was co-editor of IBBY’s quarterly journal Bookbird from 2009-11. She has a popular blog, Poetry for Children and has collaborated with poets around the world to create anthologies of poetry that provide strategies for teachers. She has taught at the University of Zimbabwe as a Fulbright Scholar, studied at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, and participated on a study tour of Yemen and Syria on a McGovern scholarship with the Middle East Policy Council.

Email: svardelltwu.LÖSCHEN.edu

Junko Yokota (USA) was elected to be the Hans Christian Andersen Jury President 2020.

Junko Yokota gained a PhD in Reading Education with a minor in Library Science from the University of North Texas in 1988 and is currently Professor Emerita at the National Louis University, where she was the Founding Director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books. Junko Yokota is a Past President of USBBY, served for three terms on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury (2006, 2008, 2018), and for many years served as secretary for the Bookbird, Inc. Board. She was the chair of the inaugural and subsequent Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours (2013, 2015, 2017) as well as chair of the 2015 Caldecott Committee in the USA.

She has held research fellowships at the University of Wrocław, Poland on a Fulbright Fellowship, at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek on a grant from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. She is the co-author of the children’s literature textbook, Children’s Books in Children’s Hands.

Email:  junko.yokotamac.LÖSCHEN.com

Ellis Vance (Fresno, USA) was re-confirmed as IBBY Treasurer at the 36th IBBY General Assembly in Athens, Greece. He has served as IBBY Treasurer since 2008.

After receiving a Master's Degree in Education, he worked as a teacher and school administrator for 40 years in the Fresno area in California. He supervised library services to children in 38 school districts in the country for a number of years before retiring. He has also taught reading methods, library services and children's literature courses at three universities in the Fresno area.

After many years in education, he is currently an education consultant and devotes most of his time to USBBY and IBBY. He has received numerous awards in the fields of education and reading and been an active member of USBBY. He is the current Bookbird Inc. Treasurer, and also served as the USBBY Treasurer until 2008. He is currently the Executive Director of USBBY. Ellis served as IBBY Vice President from 2006-2008 before becoming IBBY Treasurer.

Email: vev40comcast.LÖSCHEN.net

Liz Page grew up and lived in England until 1985 when she and her family moved to Basel. She soon became involved with JuKiBu, the Intercultural Children’s Library in Basel, of which she was a founding member. Later she was elected President of the Intercultural Children’s Libraries Association of Switzerland. She joined IBBY as Executive Assistant in 1997, worked as Administrative Director from 2003-2006 and Director of Member Services, Communications and New Projects until March 2009, when she was appointed Executive Director.

liz.pageibby.LÖSCHEN.org

Luzmaria Stauffenegger-Lobato was born and grew up in Mexico City.  She studied Graphic Design in Mexico and in 1985 attended a two-year post-graduate programme at the School of Design in Basel, where she later settled in 1990.  She collaborated as a Designer and performed various administrative tasks in the Basel design office of Stauffenegger + Stutz from 1990-2010. In 2008 she volunteered at the JUKIBU intercultural library in Basel and in the following year she became involved with the Baobab Children's Book Fund reading panel for the project Fremde Welten (other worlds).  She joined IBBY as Administrative Assistant in January 2011.

luzmaria.stauffeneggeribby.LÖSCHEN.org

Susan Dewhirst was born and grew up in Canada. She studied economics and international relations at the University of Toronto and continued her graduate studies in international economics in Geneva. After working for an investment bank in London she returned to Switzerland in 1990 and worked for over ten years on financial projects for a pharmaceutical company in Basel. Thereafter, she pursued studies in English and German literature. She joined IBBY as Administrative Assistant in November 2014.

susan.dewhirstibby.LÖSCHEN.org