Boris Handal

Dr. Boris Handal is a Peruvian-Australian Bahá’í who has written several historical books on the Bahá’í Faith. He currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife Parvin and works as a Professor of Educational Technologies at the University of Notre Dame Australia.^[1]

Background[edit]

In his professional career Boris Handal works in the field of educational curriculum development and he had taught at universities and schools in Australia, Asia, and Latin America from the 1980's onwards. He has also worked as a learning design project manager and as an educational consultant for several non-governmental and governmental agencies in Cameroon, India, Latin America and Australasia and particularly New Zealand and Australia.

As of the 1990's Handal had settled in Australia and in 2005 he was awarded the NSW Ministry of Education’s Excellence in the Integration of Information and Communication Technologies Award. He graduated with a Doctor of Education degree in curriculum development at the University of Sydney, a Masters Degree of Mathematics Education at Edith Cowan University and a teaching secondary mathematics degree from the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Puno-Peru. In addition he undertook advanced studies in research methodologies at the University of New England, a postgraduate certificate in computer education at the University of Melbourne, three years of economics studies at the University of the Altiplano (Peru) towards a BEc, and a licensed award in commercial accounting from the Ministry of Education of Peru. In 2011 Dr Handal was granted the Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Programs that Enhance Student Learning and in 2017 became the recipient of the prestigious Alan Laughlin Award by the Australian College of Educators honouring educational leadership. His research interests are in the areas of mathematics education and learning technologies and has written over one hundred and fifty academic articles, books and reports in the field of education and Bahá’í studies. Handal is currently a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta and a doctoral adjunct supervisor in Quantitative Methods at Macquarie University. He has also taught at Western Sydney University, University of Technology Sydney, University of Sydney and Newcastle University.

In addition to his professional pursuits, Boris has been an active member of the Bahá’í community serving as an Auxiliary Board member for Protection and Propagation, and a member of Local Spiritual Assemblies and regional and national committees. He also served as director of Radio Bahá’í of Lake Titicaca in Peru and as mathematics headteacher at the School of Nations in Macau (China). Boris is currently a faculty member of the Wilmette Institute and a PhD candidate in Comparative Religions at Western Sydney University. He became a Bahá’í at seventeen years of age. Boris speaks English and Spanish and did formal studies in Persian Language. He is the author and translator of several Bahá’í publications. Boris has travelled to sixty seven-countries in the world -still counting- and is married with one daughter.