United States
Head of King Abdullah Scholars Program
Hijri Unknown-Present (AH); Common Era Unknown-Present (CE)
L. Heidi Primo runs the King Abdullah (Saudi Arabia) Scholars Program and teaches diverse international students at the Institute for Language Advancement (IfLA) at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. An American expatriate from Hawai’i who has been living and teaching in Asia and the Pacific Islands for many years, including four months in Thailand, three months in Cambodia, and over five years on a small island called Pohnpei in Micronesia, Ms. Primo has been involved in English Immersion instruction and higher education administration in Malaysia for the past two years. She converted to Islam in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2004 while she was the Director of Malik Academy and Al Bustan Islamic Preschool. As an educator for over three decades, Ms. Primo’s personal research combines how Muslim women living in predominantly Islamic countries use ICT and distance-learning technologies to participate in environmental activism, e-commerce, and cross-border higher education and to advance the cause of sustainable human development. She has an M.A. degree in “Education and Human Development” from George Washington University with a concentration in “Educational Technology Leadership.” In 2009, Ms. Primo commenced her PhD research in Malaysia.
