Staff Biographies

To view complete biographies, click on each name below.

Elaine Meyer-Lee, Ed.D.
Director, Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership
Email: meyerlee [at] saintmarys [dot] edu

Mana Derakhshani, PhD.
Associate Director, Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership
Email: mana [at] saintmarys [dot] edu

Alice Siqin Yang, PhD.
Assistant Director, Global Education
Email: syang [at] saintmarys [dot] edu

Talia Cerrone, M.A.
Assistant Director, International Student/Scholar Services and Recruitment
Email: tcerrone [at] saintmarys [dot] edu

Elaine Meyer-Lee, Ed.D.

Dr. Elaine Meyer-Lee is Director of the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She oversees all global education including faculty development to support interculturalization across the curriculum, as well as visiting Fellows, the Journal of Women's Intercultural Leadership, a Leadership Certificate and Women's Entrepreneurship Initiative. She also teaches the course Analysis of Study Abroad Learning for returnees, and Introduction to InterCultural Studies.

Her doctorate in human development and psychology is from Harvard University, where she began her studies of college student development around issues of difference and the effects of intercultural education. Besides teaching, she has conducted major research projects at the Harvard/Facing History Project, Boston College, Yale, Cambridge College, and now at Saint Mary’s. She has given numerous invited talks, consultations, and juried presentations, chairs NAFSA's Women's College & University Institutional Interest Group, serves on NAFSA's International Education Leadership team, as well as advisory boards for American Council on Education's Internationalization Collaborative and the US State Department's Critical Language Scholarship Program, and wrote chapters for The Guide to Outcomes Assessment in Education Abroad (2007, Forum on Education Abroad), and Internationalizing Undergraduate Education (2005, University of Minnesota).

Mana Derakhshani, PhD.

Dr. Mana Derakhshani is Associate Director of the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership and Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages. She has a Ph. D in nineteenth-century French poetry, however since coming to Saint Mary’s College in 1989 she has focused her scholarly work on the pedagogy of languages and intercultural studies. She is coordinator of the Intercultural Studies Minor Program and has taught the Introduction to Intercultural Studies course every year since its inception.

Alice Siqin Yang, PhD.

Dr. Alice Siqin Yang is the Assistant Director of Global Education. She supports all Saint Mary’s study abroad programs and is in charge of the student intercultural travel grants. She teaches Chinese and is the first Chinese instructor of Saint Mary’s. She is the Coordinator of China Summer Program and teaches a course on Chinese Women and Society. She offers intercultural training workshops and advises leadership certificate students. She has a passion for campus internationalization.

Before joining the CWIL, Alice received her Ph.D. degree from the Program of Comparative and International Development Education at the University of Minnesota, where she received intercultural training and gained international educational exchange skills. She helped design and manage the Beijing Summer Study Abroad Program and the Master of Law Program (LL.M.) for Chinese Lawyers in Beijing for the University of Minnesota Law School. Her internship experiences at the Minnesota International Center and the American Association of University Women Minnesota helped her gain leadership and development skills.

Alice successfully applied for a grant from the Ford Foundation and did her Ph.D. dissertation research fieldwork on women’s development and gender mainstreaming in higher education in South China. She received her master’s degree in women’s studies from the University of Northern Iowa and has published her thesis in the Journal of International Women’s Studies, which was a national student survey on the internationalization and multiculturalization of women’s studies graduate programs in the United States. 

Martha Smith, B.S.

Martha is the Project Director of Women’s Entrepreneurial Initiative. She graduated from Ferris State University, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Prior to joining Saint Mary’s, she owned and operated two small businesses. One is a local mini-storage facility, and the other one is a business to business textile company. Martha and her husband started their textile business from the basement of their Michigan home and developed it into a nation-wide textile distribution enterprise. She has previous work experience with banking and manufacturing. She held jobs with First National City Bank (Citibank) in Nicaragua; Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Toledo, Ohio; and AM General in South Bend. She served on the Small Business Division Advisory Board for 1st Source Bank. Martha has served as community volunteer with the Niles YMCA and the Senior Citizens Center, as well as Hospice of Saint Joseph County. Hobbies and interests include: reading, traveling around the United States and Latin America, and power walking with her Golden Retriever, Fred.

Talia Cerrone, M.A.

Talia Cerrone is the Assistant Director of International Student & Scholar Services and Recruitment for the Center of Women's Intercultural Leadership. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a Minor in Latin American Studies and her Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Central Florida. She previously served on the board of the Florida Association of International Educators (FAIE) as the Web coordinator. Additionally, Talia has traveled throughout Latin America, and the Middle East working to recruit international students. |

 Linda Biggins, M.S.

Linda Biggins has been working at Saint Mary’s since 1994. Her role as administrative assistant in the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership is comprehensive: she coordinates events, calendars, and budgets for the central administration as well as the Research and Scholarship and Global Education components of CWIL. Linda recceived a master’s degree in secondary education from Indiana State University in Terre Haute, and has experience teaching in the classroom.  Her favorite pastime is gardening.

Pamela Blair

Pam Blair is administrative assistant and supports the CWIL staff in the areas of Leadership Education and Global Education.  Her interests lie in the social healing of our society, loving who we are, appreciating our cultural diversity, and working together to make a better world.  She studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio.  In her spare time she is an artist, poet, and singer.