ACAMIS Spring Leadership Conference
Friday & Saturday, April 25-26, 2025
Xi'an Liangjiatan International School
Theme: Power of Community
The theme of this year’s conference is Power of Community. Schools are powerful communities where we have opportunities to work together to support both children and adults throughout their lives. We will explore the opportunities where a community can be developed through buildings, engagement with the larger community, wellbeing initiatives and inclusive practices. The conference sub-themes will be focused on:
- Building: Building community through events and also through our spaces.
- Engagement: Developing strategies for our school community to engage with the larger local and global community.
- Wellbeing: Maintaining a work life balance as adults and supporting our students to care for themselves.
- Inclusion: Systems to support all students, staff and families as we build our community.
Keynote Speakers
Name
Yigong Shi
Career
President of Westlake University, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Read Yigong's Biography
Yigong Shi is an accomplished structural biologist who has made significant contributions to the field of molecular biology. He received his Bachelor's Degree with highest honors from Tsinghua University in 1989 and earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1995. After completing postdoctoral training at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Yigong began his academic career at Princeton University in 1998, where he rose to Full Professor by 2003. In 2007, he was named the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology.
In 2008, Yigong made the decision to return to Tsinghua University, where he led transformative changes in the life sciences community. He declined a prestigious offer from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to take on this role. In April 2018, he became the Founding President of Westlake University, China's first new-type research-oriented private university.
Yigong’s research has had a profound impact on understanding programmed cell death, regulated intramembrane proteolysis, and pre-mRNA splicing. He was an early proponent of cryo-EM technology for structural biology and built Tsinghua's EM facility in 2008. His groundbreaking work includes solving the first atomic structure of an intact spliceosome in 2015, the human spliceosome in 2017, and the minor spliceosome in 2020.
Yigong has received numerous prestigious accolades for his work, including being named a Searle Scholar and a Rita Allen Scholar. His awards include the 2003 Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award from the Protein Society, the 2010 Sackler Prize in Biophysics, the 2014 Gregori Aminoff Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the 2017 Future Science Prize – Life Science Award. Yigong is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is also an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. More about Yigong’s work can be found at en.westlake.edu.cn/faculty/yigong-shi
Name
Jennifer Abrams
Learn More About Jennifer
Career
English Teacher, New Teacher Coach, Communications Consultant, Author
Read Jennifer's Biography
Formerly a high school English teacher and a new teacher coach in Palo Alto Unified School District (Palo Alto, CA), Jennifer Abrams is currently a communications consultant and author who works with educators and others on new teacher and employee support, being generationally savvy, effective collaboration skills, having hard conversations and creating identity safe workplaces.
Jennifer's publications include Having Hard Conversations, The Multigenerational Workplace: Communicate, Collaborate & Create Community, Hard Conversations Unpacked - the Whos, Whens and What Ifs, and Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives. Her newest book is Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work.
Jennifer has shared her work in other mediums as a featured columnist on growth and change for Learning Forward's The Learning Professional journal as well as contributing to The International Educator (TIE) focusing her writing on adult development and collaboration skills.
Jennifer has been invited to keynote, facilitate and coach at schools and conferences in across North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. Within ACAMIS she has worked with English Schools Foundation schools, Hong Kong Academy, Keystone Academy, Concordia International School Shanghai, American International School Guangzhou and Shanghai Community International School.
She is honored to have been named one of the “18 Women All K-12 Educators Should Know,” by Education Week's ‘Finding Common Ground’ blog. More about Jennifer’s work can be found at her website, www.jenniferabrams.com, and on Twitter @jenniferabrams.
Host School
Xi'an Liangjiatan International School, is not-for-profit with a mission to enable confident open-minded, global citizens through life-long learning and a sense of community. This sense of community is the foundation of the school and connects beautifully with the conference theme. The school is an inclusive learning environment where all its members are encouraged to be their unique selves. Being an IB continuum school it desires to further the IB mission to, “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. XLIS is also committed to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges guiding principles, in particular, “a culture of collaboration that nurtures and supports the well-being of all students”. The school is an active member of the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS), with Dr. Liu serving on the board. As a truly diverse and inclusive organization XLIS focuses on delivering high-quality educational services to more than 650 outstanding international students. We extend a very warm welcome to the conference and will do our utmost to ensure you have a positive learning experience.
Lily Liu
Head of School
Xi’an Liangjiatan International School
Xi’an International Community, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
Brian Lalor
Deputy Head of School
Xi’an Liangjiatan International School
Xi’an International Community, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
Quicklinks to Other Pages
Quicklinks to Past SLC Conferences
Refund Policies
If notice of cancellation re the registered participant/sponsor is received:
- 30+ days pre-event: 80% of fee is refundable
- 15-29 days pre-event: 40% of fee is refundable
- Less than 15 days pre-event: no refund
Online PD Programs - No refund will be granted re participants commencing an online PD program and withdrawing part way through. Course material fees (re DiSC surveys, book fees, etc) are not refundable once access is granted.
Refund Due To PD Event CancellationIn the event of cancellation of a conference, workshop or online PD program, we will fully refund the registration or sponsorship fee(s) paid. However, we will be unable to refund any travel, visa or accommodation expenses incurred or course material fees where access has been granted.