Senior Advisors

Piia Björn is Vice Rector for Education of the University of Lapland, Finland. 

Piia Björn started her academic career at the University of Helsinki, where she completed her doctoral degree in Special Education, and since 2012 has held the title of docent. She has also served nine years as university lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, and for 5,5 years held a full professorship at the University of Eastern Finland. Prior to transfering to her current position, she served a full five-year term as Vice Rector for Education at the University of Turku, Finland. During her term in Turku, she also led the EC2U European University alliance activities and served on the Executive Board of the COIMBRA GROUP.

In 2023 she completed two full terms, totaling eight years, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Fulbright Finland Foundation. During her terms she also served as the Vice-Chair (2017-2018), and as the Chair (2019-2020). 

Piia Björn is an alumna of the Fulbright Finland Foundation. She was awarded a 2013-14 ASLA-Fulbright Research Grant for a Senior Scholar to Vanderbilt University, TN. 

Piia Björn’s profile on LinkedIn.

Heidi Gregori-Gahan has been active in the field of international education for more than 40 years. As Associate Provost for International Programs at the University of Southern Indiana, she developed and managed a comprehensive unit responsible for international recruitment and retention, the Intensive English program, the development and implementation of study abroad programs, and campus-wide programming. She has held regional and national positions with NAFSA: Association of International Educators, including Vice President for Professional Development, Chair of the Leadership Development Committee, and Region VI Chair. She also served for 10 years on the Board and Executive Committee (Chair) of the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP), a network of 300 universities in 50 countries. Ms. Gregori-Gahan has presented regionally, nationally, and overseas at events hosted by NAFSA, ISEP, EducationUSA and other international organizations, and she has received numerous grants to fund international projects that have enhanced both the campus and the community.

Ms. Gregori-Gahan has always believed in the transformational power of international education and its role in creating a more peaceful world. In recognition of her career achievements in advancing the goals of international education and exchange, she received the NAFSA Life Membership Award in May 2020. Upon her retirement from the University of Southern Indiana in 2020, Ms. Gregori-Gahan was granted emerita status by the USI Board of Trustees. She is the 2020 recipient of the Honorary Alumni Award from USI’s Alumni Association.

Since 2020 Ms. Gregori-Gahan continues to serve USI as International Advancement Specialist, a part-time remote role which is charged with the development of an international alumni network and fundraising initiative. She has worked closely with the inaugural International Alumni Advisory Council and its Executive Board as well as colleagues from USI to develop and implement strategic goals in support of an engaged, sustainable international alumni network and an endowment to support international student success at USI.

Dr. (HC), POTP Jamie Hyneman is CEO of M5 Industries. He serves as a Professor of Practice at LUT University in Lappeenranta, Finland, and has started a nonprofit focused on supporting efforts to mitigate climate change, the Climate Innovation Coalition (CIC). 

Jamie Hyneman has been credited for his part in creating one of the most successful televised science and engineering documentaries in history, the MythBusters, which has encouraged several generations of young people, worldwide, to take up careers embracing the sciences. He has received 3 honorary doctorates from different universities in the U.S. and Europe, and on the wall of his office he displays those certificates right alongside one that certifies a Lifelong Honorary Membership in the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators.

Along with being raised on a farm in midwestern U.S., having a degree in Russian Linguistics from Indiana University, and having worked as a librarian at the United Nations in Geneva in the International Labour Office Library Slavic Collection, Jamie Hyneman captained a diving and sailing charter boat for years in the Caribbean. Founder and CEO of M5 Industries, a special effects company in San Francisco for decades, he has had his hand in producing over 800 commercials and feature films.

Ed Roslof is a historian and consultant on international higher education exchanges, currently living in Helsinki.

Previously, Dr. Roslof was Senior Director in Russia for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before that he served as an executive in the Fulbright Program for ten years. He started as director of the Fulbright office in Moscow. Later, he moved to Washington, DC, to become director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program and then executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which helps administer the world-wide Fulbright Scholar exchange.

At the start of his academic career, Dr. Roslof held faculty and senior administrative positions at United Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has a Ph.D. in Russian history and has written extensively on Russian religious history and culture.

David Yoken is a Senior Lecturer at the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences. 

He develops projects related to artistic practice, community-based arts activities, and the STEAM approach to environmental education. He has lectured on the performing arts and cross-interdisciplinary arts education at leading universities all over the world. For the past 24 years, Yoken led successfully funded Nordic Council of Ministers’ NORDPLUS Higher Education and Horizontal innovative interdisciplinary networks which brought together students, teachers, and researchers from Nordic and Baltic region universities, schools, NGOs and municipalities all of whom were focused on the praxis of arts and science. He has also coordinated a number of EU Erasmus + and EU Creative Europe supported projects related to the arts and media, and expanding audience accessibility.  

In the spring of 1991, David Yoken was a Fulbright Senior Specialist, at the former Soviet State Theatre Academy in Moscow, U.S.S.R. He was a member of the Fulbright Finland Foundation Board during 2014-2022, serving as the Chair from January 2021 to June 2022.

The President of the Republic of Finland, Sauli Niinistö bestowed upon Yoken, the honorary Cross of Merit of the Order of the White Rose of Finland, on Finnish Independence Day, December 6th, 2020