Biljana Belamaric Wilsey, Ph.D.

Born and raised in Macedonia, Dr. Belamaric Wilsey earned her first Master's degree in English as a Second Language and her second Master's degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She has three years of experience developing and teaching a seminar in Macedonian language and culture for linguists working for the US government, and eight years of experience teaching Russian in a distance education and on-site environment and pedagogy and communicating in the US classroom, in addition to four years of experience developing multimedia materials in a business learning setting. In 2005, she developed the only currently available online tutorial for learning Macedonian pronunciation and writing. She has been heading the center since 2007. Her Ph.D. is focused on instructional technology for language learning with multimedia and online technologies. Her articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as CALICO Journal Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, and her movie reviews were published in KinoKultura's special edition on Macedonian film. In 2015, she was chosen as one of "40 under 40" rising stars of Macedonian heritage by the United Macedonian Diaspora.

David Wilsey, M.B.A.

Mr. Wilsey is currently the Chief Operating Officer for the Balanced Scorecard Institute, a strategic planning training and consulting firm. He earned his MBA at North Carolina State University and has been studying Macedonian since 2001. He has decades of experience in a wide range of fields, including consulting, training, marketing, website design, programming, research, education, and multimedia production. In addition to his role as treasurer for the Center, Mr. Wilsey is also responsible for the design and functionality of the Center's website.

Robert Greenberg, Ph.D.

Dr. Greenberg is the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Human and Social Futures at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was previously an adjunct professor in the Slavic Languages and Literatures department at Yale University, acting Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Hunter College in New York City, and Dean of the Faculty of the Arts at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He earned his PhD at Yale University. He taught Macedonian and various other Slavic languages for over two decades before leaving teaching for university administration. A polyglot, Dr. Greenberg's research interests and publications include topics of language, identity, nationalism, and politics in the Balkans.

Ljupco Spasovski, Ph.D.

Dr. Spasovski earned his B.A. in English from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje and his M.A. in English and Ph.D. in Rhetoric/Composition and Linguistics from Arizona State University. He has been an Instructor of Rhetoric/Composition /Linguistics at Arizona State University since 1998. From 1998-2008, he taught Macedonian at the Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute. During his 25 years of international experience in university-level language instruction, curriculum design, and testing, he has developed and taught a variety of classroom-based, hybrid, and online courses in writing, grammar, general and applied linguistics, and ESL. As an expert language consultant, translator, and interpreter into/from Macedonian and other Slavic languages, Dr. Spasovski has coordinated and facilitated educational and training programs in US and abroad. He is currently a residential faculty member in Mesa Community Colleges English Department in Mesa, Arizona, where he teaches English composition and ESL.

Katerina Vasileska, M.A.

Ms. Vasileska holds a European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democracy and a B.A. in Turkish and Italian language and literature. She was born in Ohrid, Macedonia and founded a company for promoting responsible tourism. Her previous experience includes work as teacher, translator and interpreter. In the Local Development Agency in Struga, Macedonia, she is coordinating the program for social inclusion. Her great desire is to help promote Macedonia and the Macedonian language abroad, as well as to motivate more people to visit Macedonia and recognize the beauty of Macedonian culture and its traditions.

Steven Clancy, Ph.D.

Dr. Clancy is Senior Lecturer on Slavic Languages and Literatures and Director of the Language Program in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at Harvard University. Prior to the current position, he was the founder and Academic Director of the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Languages. His research interests include cognitive linguistics, case and verbal semantics, corpus linguistics (including using Multidimensional Scaling), grammaticalization, and historical linguistics. His publications include the The Chain of BEING and HAVING in Slavic and “The ascent of guy” as well as two books on Slavic case semantics with Laura Janda: The Case Book for Russian (2002), winner of the 2005 AATSEEL book award for best book in language pedagogy and The Case Book for Czech (2006). The Case Book for Polish is forthcoming. From 2007-2010 he was the president of the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA), an international organization for Slavic Linguists.

Meto Koloski

Metodija A. Koloski is Senior Development Officer at Freedom House, the world's leading pro-democracy organization. He is also Co-Founder and Former President of the United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD), headquartered in Washington, D.C. He has been been published in the Washington Times, the Foreign Policy Association, The Hill’s Congress Blog, the National Post, the Journal Gazette, and the International Relations Forum. He is frequently quoted in the Macedonian and international media on topics related to Macedonia and the diaspora.

A fluent Macedonian speaker, having learned the language during his childhood, Koloski is proud to serve on the Board of the Macedonian Language E-Learning Center. For his efforts to promote the rich immigrant heritage of the United States, Koloski was recognized and appointed to the Honorary Board of Welcome.us in June 2015.

In his previous capacities, Koloski has worked for the Foreign Policy Association, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and DLA Piper LLP. He holds a Bachelors of Arts from Manhattanville College in Political Science and International Relations.

Koloski’s family migrated to the United States from Macedonia in the early 1950s due to communist Yugoslavia’s anti-democratic policies. Koloski was born and raised in Garfield, New Jersey. His family has roots in the Republic of Macedonia, Aegean Macedonia (current day northern Greece), and Korca, Albania.

Liljana Mitkovska, Ph.D.

Dr. Mitkovska is associate professor of English grammar and English-Macedonian contrastive analysis at the FON University, Macedonia. She has taught English as a foreign language and Macedonian to foreigners and heritage speakers. She is a co-author of the book Зборувате ли македонски? (Do you Speak Macedonian?), a beginners course for Macedonian as a foreign language, Тајната на зборовите (The Secret of Words), an introductory course in Macedonian for children of Macedonian origin in Australia and has worked with Christina Kramer on the third edition of the course book Macedonian, a course for beginning and intermediate students. Her research interests comprise Macedonian linguistics from typological perspective, contrastive linguistics, second/foreign language acquisition and learner language analysis.

Hristina Dojčinova Koceva, M.A.

Hristina Dojčinova Koceva is a Macedonian communications and translation professional, and a true entrepreneur at heart, who was born in Kočani, Macedonia and has lived and studied in the US, the UK, Canada and Germany. She holds a B.A in Interpreting and Translation in English and French from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, and a Master’s degree in European Studies – EU Law, Politics and Economics from the University of Bonn. She is set to embark on her PhD studies in Communications at McGill University in Montreal.

An accredited interpreter and translator by the EU institutions, the Canadian government, and the Macedonian Ministry of Justice, Hristina has provided interpreting to diplomatic missions, international organizations, and top state administration, including the President of Macedonia. She was a Junior Faculty Teaching Assistant at the Department of Interpreting and Translation in Skopje, where she taught Consecutive interpreting, Written translation, and specialized terminology for seven years. Ms. Dojčinova is a founding member and the first Vice-President of the Macedonian Translators and Interpreters Association (MATA). She was the organizer of the first translators’ event in Macedonia in July 2007 and has organized many forums then, including MATA’s annual conferences.

She moved with her family to Canada in 2015 and while based in Montreal, she has provided communications advisory services to clients in the aviation, investments, events, and language industries. She is the founder of two companies: one importing natural health products and cosmetics from Europe, and the other, organizing business events all over Canada and the US. Hristina is devoted to keeping close ties to Macedonia, visits her home country frequently, and tirelessly supports initiatives for promoting the Macedonian language and culture.

Marija Kusevska, Ph.D.

Dr. Kusevska received her MTESL from Arizona State University. She currently teaches Business English and English Language Teaching Methodology and has taught Macedonian at the Critical Languages Institute, Arizona State University. She is a co-author of Do You Speak Macedonian, the first book for teaching Macedonian to foreigners based on the communicative approach. Her research interest include pragmatics and second language acquisition.

George Mitrevski, Ph.D.

Dr. Mitrevski is a professor emeritus from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Auburn University. His interests include Macedonian language, literature, and folklore, as well as computer-assisted language learning.

Meredith Clason, M.A.

Ms. Clason is the associate director of the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago. She has a Master’s degree in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of North Carolina and was previously the project coordinator of the Duke-UNC Slavic and East European Languages Resource Center. She has studied Macedonian, Russian, Serbian/Croatian, and Bulgarian.

Elisabeth Elliott, Ph.D.

Dr. Elliott is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Slavic Languages in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. She earned her PhD from the University of Toronto. She currently teaches Russian, courses in linguistics, and has taught Macedonian at the University of Chicago and Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Her research interests include second language acquisition and language and culture.