Dr. Mohamed Maamouri is Associate Director, ILI, and Senior Researcher, and is also Senior Administrator at the Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania. He heads the Arabic Treebank research group.  Dr. Maamouri received his Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell University in 1967 and spent most of his professional career at the University of Tunis where he was a Professor of linguistics at the Faculté des Lettres de la Manouba (University of Manouba) from 1967to 2001, and Director of the Bourguiba Institute of Modern Languages from 1975 to 1988. Dr. Maamouri joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.

Daniel Andler, ILI Senior Advisor, holds doctoral degrees in mathematics from UC Berkeley and Paris. After specializing in model theory and teaching mathematics in various universities in and around Paris, he moved to positions in philosophy in Lille and then Nanterre. Dr. Andler is now a professor of philosophy of science and epistemology at Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He was for many years co-director and then briefly director of CREA (Centre de recherche en épistémologie appliquée, Ecole polytechnique and CNRS, Paris). Dr. Andler stepped down as founding head of the Department of Cognitive Studies at Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, a few years ago. In 2007 he was elected to senior membership in the Institut Universitaire de France.

Andrew Babson is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. He studied social anthropology at the London School of Economics (MSc., 2002) and liberal arts at the University of Paris IV- Sorbonne and Xavier University (Honors A.B., 1998). Currently Andrew is working with Jay Lemke at the University of Michigan and Dan Wagner at the University of Pennsylvania, managing the BFI project in South Africa. Through his affiliation with Professor Wagner and ILI, he has presented his work on BFI at the CIES, Penn Forum, WSIS and ICT4D conferences. His dissertation research is in South Africa's Limpopo province on multilingualism, the role of technology in social change, and the history of education.   Other research interests include socio-cultural considerations in software development, the impact of ICTs for literacy among disadvantaged, rural, low-literate populations. 

Dr. Bob Day is ILI Senior Advisor, specializing in the appropriate applications of science, technology and innovation (STI) to the eradication of poverty. He currently heads up his own consulting firm, Non-Zero Sum Development. Dr. Day   received his Ph.D. at Imperial College (London), is currently acting as Special Advisor to the Mozambican Minister of Science and Technology in developing and implementing their National S&T Strategy (MOSTIS).   He is actively involved in the ongoing development of the strategic STI relationships between the Finnish and South African public, research, private and civil sectors.    He is assisting NEPAD, the CGIAR and regional stakeholders in the development of ReSAKSS, a Pan-African knowledge system of systems for agricultural development.   Prior to that, Dr. Day was Executive Director of ICT at UNISA (Pretoria).   He has consulted to UNESCO, UNDP, UNECA, IDRC, World Bank (InfoDev), Imfundo (DFID), ILI, ILRI, CSIR, HSRC, as well as several private sector organisations.

Rachael Dubin is a masters candidate in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development (ISHD) program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She completed her BA in Psychology and East Asian Studies at Bryn Mawr College. Her research interests include education and psychology of the gifted (youth and adults), and the educational and psychosocial impact of technology. 

Dr. Iddo Gal is ILI Special Senior Advisor for Literacy/Numeracy Assessment. Dr. Gal received his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for five years as Assistant Research Professor at Penn's Graduate School of Education, before accepting a position at the Department of Human Services, University of Haifa, Israel, where he is a Senior Lecturer. His areas of interest and research include development and assessment of numeracy (mathematical literacy), statistical literacy and functional skills, adult learning, empowerment of workers and clients in human service organizations, and managerial and organizational processes in service organization. He serves as the Co-Editor of the Statistics Education Research Journal (2003-2007). Recently he led the team responsible for numeracy assessment in the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills (ALL) survey, a joint international project managed by Statistics Canada, the National Center on Education Statistics, in collaboration with OECD. 

Romilla Karnati is Senior Research Advisor with the NCAL/ILI at the University of Pennsylvania. Romilla received her Ph.D. in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development (ISHD) program at the Graduate School of Education, and is currently working at Teachers College Columbia University.   She completed her Masters in Psychological Services from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2000.   Romilla has an undergraduate degree in Psychology, Literature and Economics from Mount Carmel College, India. She came to the US in 1998 to pursue her higher studies. Romilla has been actively involved in research projects evaluating the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project and later Head Start Math Research under Dr. Frye at the University of Pennsylvania.   Romilla joined the International Literacy Institute and worked on the BFI project since its inception.   She was involved in the review of educational software, design of assessment measures, program implementation, data collection and data analyses of the BFI-India project. Her research topic was on the impact of computer-aided instruction on school dropouts in rural India.   Her research interests are in literacy, IT, international education and development. 

Brian V. Street is Professor of Language in Education in the School of Education at King's College, London University and Visiting Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. He undertook anthropological fieldwork in Iran during the 1970s, and has since worked in the USA, Britain, S. Africa and elsewhere. He has written and lectured extensively on literacy practices from both a theoretical and an applied perspective. In addition to more than a dozen books, he has written over 100 scholarly articles.