Mr. Ris has spent over a decade in international schools. Entering his seventh year with APIS, he graciously served as an Assistant Principal and Dean of Residential Life at the APIS Hawaii campus, before joining the Seoul campus team. Previously, he also taught history and worked as a school administrator for many years at an international boarding school in Shanghai, China. He has earned a master's degree in International Education Administration from Endicott College and a bachelor's degree in History from the University of Pittsburgh. He has a strong passion for whole child education and firmly believes in the dual importance of building characters and citizens along with self-motivated, rigorous learners. Mr. Ris comes from a family of accomplished educators and grew up on various school campuses his entire childhood. He gets excited about the mission of APIS and the focus on personalization, strong positive relationships, and college preparation and success. Mr. Ris loves traveling, spending time on the water, and spending as much time as he can with his wife and two young daughters.

Mrs. Sea has 18 years of teaching experience in the public school system in Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S., and from APIS, Seoul, South Korea. Outside of the school setting, she also worked as a museum educator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and has led various summer camps in and outside of the country.

After serving students at APIS for the past 13 years and developing the curriculum for art department as well as being involved in managing school-wide academic programs such as summer school coordinator, NPCA teacher, and a chair for the Visual Art and Literary Magazine (Pacific Pencil), she is excited to share her pedagogical knowledge and experience with faculty at APIS.

She hopes to support teachers to be engaged in their teaching so that the teachers can guide students to be engaged in their learning. She is also excited to solidify the school’s identity by developing the coherence of the curriculum based on the mission and vision of the school.

She feels very blessed to be in a Christian community where she can help students to develop skills to become globally enlightened citizens with the love of Jesus Christ.

During her free time, she loves to cook, travel, and find good places to eat, but most of all, she enjoys spending time with her husband and her daughter.

Rebecca Ragsdale was born and raised in Waycross, Georgia. After earning her B.S., she returned to her hometown and taught secondary mathematics for ten years. Some of her favorite memories of those years include working with the National Beta Club, as well as hosting other student-led clubs throughout her years as an educator. Ms. Ragsdale truly believes in building meaningful relationships with students and inspiring curiosity in the classroom. In her free time, she likes all things music. She often goes to concerts and musicals, and she greatly enjoys singing. Her other hobbies include finding the best coffee around, reading, and spending time with friends and family.

Ms. Ramsaran is from Southern Illinois and received her BS in Agricultural Economics and her Master’s in Education. She is also certified in teaching Special Education for early childhood students and has worked at elementary school in Dallas for the past several years. Ms. Ramsaran values a student-centered learning environment where children feel safe and excited to learn. When Ms. Ramsaran isn’t teaching; she enjoys reading, baking, and exploring new places.

After a 38 year career teaching English and working as an Administrator at Los Altos High School in Los Altos, California, Mr. Rosenberg has pursued a dream of international teaching and joins the APIS faculty excited to learn alongside his students and to create an inclusive, engaging and challenging learning environment that meets every student’s needs. He has had particular interests in poetry, new media and journalism, but also loves teaching and learning the traditional English Language Arts curriculum. He enjoys all of the creative arts, the outdoors– and also playing tennis, the saxophone and the kazoo. Mr. Rosenberg’s wife, Denise, has joined him in Seoul. They have two adult daughters and two grandchildren.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Scadden has been teaching for 8 years. He began his teaching career in the San Francisco public high schools where he taught primarily history, along with health and college preparatory courses. In 2018 he took his first steps into the world of international schools, moving to Albania to teach social studies at an IB school. Afterwards, Mr. Scadden moved to Japan to teach History and English Literature, before moving back to San Francisco briefly. He believes that education should always be student centered, giving students multiple creative and academic outlets to showcase their knowledge while also providing a strong differentiated education for each student. He looks forward to taking part in community building both inside and outside the classroom at APIS by supporting any extracurricular interests of the student body. Aside from teaching Mr. Scadden enjoys skiing and snowboarding, as well as going to the movies or staying in and reading fiction.

Mr. Sim earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from McMaster University, where he majored in English literature. After graduating, he moved to Toronto where he worked for several years as a recording engineer at Reaction Studios. In 2006, Mr. Sim made the decision to come to Korea to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Inspired by his experiences in Korea, he returned to Canada to study intermediate senior English and history education at Trent University. At APIS, Mr. Sim teaches High School (HS) English, Middle School (MS) Writer’s Workshop, and recording arts. In addition to those things already mentioned, Mr. Sim also enjoys reading, feeling frustrated on the tennis court, and occasionally laboring his way up mountains.

Ms. Amanda Vogel comes to APIS after a 16 year high school science teaching career at a large school district in Iowa. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Simpson College with a major in Biology and a minor in Psychology. Ms. Vogel continued her education by obtaining a master’s degree along with her teaching certification. Her life-long commitment and passion for learning are key components of her teaching philosophy. As a secondary science teacher, she believes it is her responsibility to not only teach her students the science content, but to encourage them to apply what they have learned to become informed and productive citizens in their community. Outside of the classroom, Ms. Vogel enjoys spending time with her two grown children, training and playing with her dog, reading, and playing recreational sports.

Mr. Wright is from Indianapolis, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in English education and completed his Master of Education in International Teaching at Framingham State University. He has been teaching for over five years. He is passionate about helping students learn to take ownership of their own learning so that they may become lifelong learners who never stop seeking knowledge and looking for ways to improve themselves. John Dewey said it best: “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

Ms. Yoo earned her Master of Education in English Language Education from Seoul National University. Her research focus of her dissertation was on measuring the validity of some of the most renown language standard assessments. She brings the knowledge into coordinating K-12 WIDA, an English proficiency test, to appropriately measure and support varying language abilities across APIS.
Ms. Yoo comes with the experience of teaching in IB schools, working closely with MYP and DP, and writing English workbooks for Korea’s most prestigious language education group. Ms. Yoo also has experience working as a news reporter and hosting international conferences, including the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, in both English and Korean.
Ms. Yoo had a similar upbringing to students at APIS, as she attended international schools in Singapore and Korea. With the similar background, Ms. Yoo hopes to support the EAL students to become successful multilingual individuals and fully meet their potential.