Friends of Fulbright Finland Alumni Council

Bruce L. Blair is a Senior Analyst at the State of New Hampshire Department of Energy. He was a Fulbright-EDUFI Research Fellow for 2019-2020 and was primarily located at the University of Jyväskylä where he researched Finnish nuclear waste management efforts.  Like all Fulbright scholars, Bruce’s Fulbright was ended prematurely in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bruce’s research background not only includes nuclear waste management on the country and international level, but also includes international cooperation and conflict, non-profit management, and public-private partnerships. Bruce is also an experienced higher education administrator with previous appointments in student success, international education, graduate education, and on-campus housing.

Bruce is excited to serve on the FoFF Alumni Council and to help pay forward all of the help and aid he has received. 

Mary Anne Butler is currently the Superintendent of Stonington Public Schools in Stonington, Connecticut. Prior to her superintendency, she held Assistant Superintendent positions in Stonington, Groton, and Windsor Public Schools. Her career in public education also includes over 6 years of experience with the Connecticut State Department of Education in various roles including Chief Academic Officer. Butler has over a decade of classroom teaching experience serving in Somers Public Schools. The Bureau of Education and Research in Bellevue, Washington hired her in 2003 as a national presenter on science education and she continues to deliver seminars across the country as a consultant. Mary Anne just completed her second 4 year-term on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) High School Review Committee. She is a free-lance writer for Penguin Random House. Mary Anne is a member of the inaugural cohort of the Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools (Finland). She holds a B.S. in Biology from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, a J.D. from Western New England University School of Law, and a 6th Year Degree in Educational Leadership from Central Connecticut State University.

Dr. John Donnellan, Fulbright Scholar Liaison, Professor and Chair of the Management Department at NJCU School of Business. A distinguished three-time Fulbright award winner, Dr. Donnellan specializes in International Education.  

He has presented several times at the Fulbright Convention in 2022 and 2024 with Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland and Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Finland.

He is a prolific researcher and an international educator, having lectured extensively in China, England, France, Finland, and Mexico. His lecture engagements span prestigious institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford and Columbia University. His research led to the development of the ARC model in higher education, featured on NPR's "Academic Minute."

Dr. Donnellan actively contributes to the Fulbright community, serving on Friends of Fulbright Finland (FoFF) Alumni Council since May 2023 and the Board of Directors for the Fulbright NJ Chapter since 2023.

After completing his Ph.D. at the Ohio State University in 1975, Dr. Loovis joined the faculty of the College of Applied Life Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where he was an assistant professor from 1975 to 1978. He relocated to Cleveland State University in 1978 and retired in 2013 as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Health and Human Performance. In 2016 he returned to his former department and served as the interim chairperson retiring for the second time in 2022.  He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2011, teaching and collaborating on a research project with colleagues at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. 

Dr. Loovis’ primary area of research is the development of fundamental motor skills and patterns in children who are typically developing as well as children with intellectual disabilities. For the past 10 years he has collaborated with a team from the Department of Physical Therapy at Wichita State University in Kansas documenting the development of motor proficiency/competence and postural control in children and youth with intellectual disabilities. He is the author/co-author of more than 70 published articles/book chapters. He has delivered over 100 national and international presentations.  

Julia McGee is the Program Manager of the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network. As a former play-based learning specialist, Julia is committed to helping support projects that that lead to high-quality education without barriers to success through playful learning best practices. 

Her philosophy of education has derived from the belief that all children deserve a stimulating social-emotional, sensory-oriented, and academic environment where every child can grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially in a playfully conducive setting. This vision was influenced by her year-long Fulbright Scholar research grant in Helsinki, Finland, where she researched the effects of play-based learning in early childhood by way of a Finnish social-emotional environment.  When Julia returned to the U.S in 2019, she was able to secure a grant to turn a charter school storage room into a play-based classroom. Julia’s self-created program, Just Play, operated out of the grant-awarded playspace in North Philadelphia.

Julia holds an Urban Education Master’s Certification from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in International Education and Music Business from Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania where she served as the President of the Class of 2013. As Program Manager of PLLAN, Julia is able to continue her Fulbright work within local communities to help transform public places and spaces that families frequent to create playful learning opportunities where they are needed the most!

Susanna Monseau is a professor in the School of Business at The College of New Jersey where she teaches a variety of law and policy courses. Ms. Monseau is an attorney qualified in the state of New York and in England.  Prior to becoming an academic, she worked as an Intellectual Property litigator at law firms in London, Philadelphia, and Princeton, New Jersey. Ms. Monseau’s research interests include law and policy issues that relate to the globalization of the world economy particularly questions about intellectual property. Her scholarship has been published in a wide range of law and business journals. She has also written two books: Law, Technology, and the Future of Business and Protecting Creativity in Fashion Design: US Laws, EU Design Rights, and Other Dimensions of Protection. She spent Fall 2022 as the Fulbright-Turku UAS Scholar working on understanding the policy obstacles to a sustainable textiles and fashion supply chain. She will return to Finland in 2023 on an American Scandinavian Fellowship to continue work on the role of the EU textiles strategy and certifications in the supply chain.

Susanna is honored to serve on the FoFF Alumni Council to pay forward all the help she has received and to help shape the future of the Fulbright Finland alumni program.

Edward Sivak received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Gannon University and his Doctor of Medicine degree from Hahnemann (now Drexel-Hahnemann) Medical College.  His professional career has spanned more than 50 years. He is a Vietnam Veteran receiving Bronze Star for Service after which he received specialty and subspecialty training at the Cleveland Clinic and University of Oklahoma. 

Prior to his current position, he was the director of the medical intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic, Director of Critical Care at Meridia Huron Hospital and Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at SUNY, Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.   He has authored and co-authored 73 scientific abstracts and publications, written numerous text book chapters and edited a critical care text, The High-Risk Patient: Management of the Critically Ill. 

Doctor Sivak is currently a staff physician at MetroHealth Medical Center and Professor at CWRU, School of Medicine.  He received a Fulbright Flex Grant to Finland (2015-2016)  and returned to Aalto University as visiting professor to continue research in cost of health care.  His outreach activities advocate for collaborative exchanges between Finland and the United States emphasizing the importance of supporting the scholars visiting the United States.  He is recently appointed to the Fulbright Specialist Roster by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and World Learning.

Leasa is the Director for Strategic Partnerships at the University of Denver Office of Internationalization - one of the many roles she holds includes serving as the Fulbright Scholar Campus Liaison. Her career has been shaped by the Fulbright program; she received a Fulbright grant to conduct PhD fieldwork at the University of Jyväskylä and lived and worked in Finland for 11 years. From 2019-2023, she served as the Assistant Director of Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives for the Fulbright Finland Foundation.

Leasa has over 20 years of experience as a scholar-practitioner in international higher education, including roles as the president of the global Erasmus Mundus Association, Knowledge Development Advisor for the European Association for International Education and an expert in numerous European projects. Bridging research with practice, she continues to contribute to thought-leadership in the field of internationalization and has authored and edited numerous international publications.

She holds a PhD in higher education policy from the University of Georgia, an Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degree in European higher education from the University of Oslo, Norway; University of Tampere, Finland; and University of Aveiro, Portugal, and an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Communications from the University of Colorado at Boulder.