About Dr. Gila Kurtz

Prof. Kurtz is the Dean of the Faculty of Instructional Technologies at the Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) in Israel. She currently also holds a position as a Research Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, Germany, where she is part of the "Education for the Digital World" research group. She has a wealth of experience, having served as the Academic Vice President at a company specializing in e-learning solutions for the corporate sector for several years.

Before joining HIT, she developed and managed an ICT and a Learning M.A. program at the College for Academic Studies in Israel. Prof. Kurtz has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Graduate School in the Master of Distance Education and E-learning Program, where she co-developed and co-taught online courses.

Prof. Kurtz’s other positions were head of interactive television satellite-based unit at the Open University of Israel (OUI) and director of an e-learning center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She was also the academic vice president of a company that provided e-learning solutions for the corporate industry. She served as a director and the secretary of The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (IBSTPI), where she was a co-author of a book titled "Online Learner Competencies: Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills for Successful Learning."

For several years Prof. Kurtz was a member of the Steering Committee of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN). She serves as a member on the Peer Review Board of several journals like Journal of Educators Online and The European Journal of Open and Distance Learning. For several years, Prof. Kurtz was the Editor-in-Chief of The Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Skills and Lifelong Learning (IJELL) and a guest editor for Systems journal.  She has been a visiting scholar at several academic institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Education and at Syracuse University.

Her research focuses on the innovation, development, and implementation of emerging technologies, including social robots, AR/VR, and Generative AI, in learning and training, with related interests in digital learning, future learning technologies, instructional design, and digital readiness. She currently leads national and international projects on integrating Generative AI in educational settings. Prof. Kurtz has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Behaviour & Information Technology, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL), Computers and Education, the American Journal of Distance Education, the Journal of Educational Technology & Society, and The Electronic Journal of e-Learning.

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