Sabine O'Hara

Vice President and Executive Director, Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES)

Dr. Sabine U. O’Hara began her tenure as Executive Director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) and Vice President of IIE in July 2007.  A respected author, researcher and professor, she is well known for her expertise in sustainable economic development and global education. She has lectured around the globe, including Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Tunisia and the UK and is the author of two books and numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and research reports. In addition, she has developed and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses, many related economic development, sustainability and economics and ethics. 

Dr. O’Hara is a strong advocate of higher education, who believes that education is not simply about having one’s questions answered but about having one’s answers questioned.  Learning how to analyze and question, how to solve problems creatively and how to serve others are key not only to finding a successful career, but to finding one’s passions and to leading a meaningful life.

Before joining CIES/IIE, Dr. O’Hara was President of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. Serving as the college’s 10^th president she led Roanoke through a successful strategic planning process and established a new focus on integrative learning to guide curricular, co-curricular and facilities innovations.   Prior to joining Roanoke, Dr. O’Hara held faculty and administrative positions at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and director of public policy for the New York State Council of Churches in Albany, New York.

Dr. O’Hara is a native of Germany and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Gottingen, where she also received a doctorate in environmental economics. She serves on the board of directors of several national organizations, including the United States Society of Ecological Economics, and the Association for Social Economics.

She is married to The Reverend Dr. R. Philip O’Hara, a pastor in the United Methodist Church who holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Vanderbilt University and has taught at the high school and college level in addition to having served parishes in New York and Vermont. The O’Haras have three sons.