Joseph Zajda (Australian Catholic University) has been a CIES member and conference participant since 1991. Zajda is the Director of Institute for International Education and Development at the School of Education, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He has promoted comparative education research both in Australia and globally for over a decade and was one of the fist academics in Australia to launch two graduate courses Global Studies in Education, which are offered in face-to-face and off-campus modes.

Zajda presented numerous papers at Annual CIES meetings and in 2004 initiated a panel of international education editors. Zajda is currently an editor of three international refereed journals in education and serves as Chair of the Publications Standing Committee of the World Council of Comparative and Education Societies and Chair of the CIES Presidential Advisory Council for International Relations.

Zajda's vision for CIES includes a) developing increased publication output of research papers in comparative education journals and new comparative education book series; b) extending and consolidating global links worldwide to further increase the international membership; c) rewarding research in comparative education scholarship by establishing a $ 2,000 annual award for Excellence in Comparative Education Research and, d) establishing a scholarly book series fund (to be operated jointly by CIES and an international publisher) to enable publication of the best doctoral dissertations and other scholarly monographs (up to 5 monographs per year initially).