Program Director / Faculty Leader: Prof. Simone Elias
About the Program Director/ Faculty Leader
Dr. Simone Elias is the Faculty leader of the Brazil Dialogue of Civilizations. Simone has been designing and leading the Brazil Dialogues to Rio, Bahia and Belo Horizonte, for the past five years. Simone was born and raised in Brazil and has an extensive knowledge and experience with the Brazilian system, having lived, studied, worked and traveled all over Brazil.
At the undergraduate level, besides coordinating the Portuguese program, Dr. Elias also teaches Portuguese at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Simone has developed and taught Technology, Education and language classes in private and public educational systems, from classroom instruction to hybrid and virtual instruction thus far. Simone’s teaching approach and use of technology in the classroom were noted and recognized by local newspapers and institutions abroad. She consistently receives teaching scores as high as 5 on TRACE surveys, and student’s comments are highly complimentary.
Simone is constantly voted a favorite professor at the Cauldron Yearbook, and frequently nominated for Northeastern University-wide Excellence in Teaching Award. She was also awarded the Academic Excellence Award at the doctoral level in 2012 and 2013, and the prestigious New Directions in the Humanities Academic Scholar Award in 2013, in Budapest.
Simone holds a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership Studies from Northeastern University, a Masters Degree in Instructional Technology and a BS in Business Administration, concentrated in Entrepreneurship.
Prior to Northeastern, Dr. Elias worked in the public schools system in Massachusetts. She has also worked in the fields of Biotechnology in Brazil, and participated in numerous ventures over the years. Her scholarly interests are life story narratives, Authentic Leadership studies and Brazilian studies.
Assistant Directors and Primary TA's
Luka Ilic is the TA of the 2015 21st Brazil Dialogue at Northeastern University. He is a middler economics and finance dual major with a Portuguese minor. Originally from Serbia, he now lives in New York City and has always had a great interest in Brazil and the Portuguese language after training jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai with Brazilians in NYC. Luka studied with Professor Elias for 2 semesters before attending the 2014 Brazil Dialogue and then staying for his first co-op afterwards in Belo Horizonte with ICBEU and the Government of Belo Horizonte. Luka is now a Fluent Portuguese speaker and is incredibly excited to assist Professor Elias and the students on the 2015 dialogue.
Badreddine El Rhoul is the TA for the 2015 Brazilian Coast dialogue at Northeastern University. He is a transfer student studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Portuguese. Raised in Somerville, MA, he always had a close relation to the Brazilian culture. Nicknamed “Bad”, he has participated in the 2014 Brazil Dialogues with Prof. Elias. After his experience he knew right away that he wanted to get involved with Prof.Elias’s program even further. He is aiming to assist Brazil’s progress in energy conservation and environmental sustainability. Due to his Moroccan lineage, Bad speaks both Arabic and is well versed in Portuguese. His ultimate goal is to attain his Degree from Northeastern University, and to one day establish himself as well respected engineer.