Shannon Kobran is the Head of Education and Training at the SDG Academy, the flagshipeducation initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, hosted at Sunway University in Malaysia.Shannon has been with the SDG Academy since 2018, when she joined as an EducationManager in SDSN's New York office. In 2021, she moved to Malaysia to establish an SDGAcademy team in Kuala Lumpur.

Prior to joining SDSN, Shannon worked for a NYC-basednonprofit that promotes global citizenship through cultural exchange between internationalstudents and local communities. She has also worked with the UN Development Programme(UNDP), evaluating and revising the pilot of UNDP’s award-winning Leadership DevelopmentPathway, an online training program aimed at improving the performance of UNDP managersworldwide.

Before transitioning to the international development space, Shannon spent fiveyears as an editor and project manager for a leading educational publishing house. She holds aMaster’s degree in International Educational Development from Teachers College, ColumbiaUniversity, where her research focused on the intersection of technology and interculturaleducation. Shannon traces her interest in international education to the formative year shespent in the U.K. and the international connections she forged while completing her Bachelor'sdegree in English Literature at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, USA.