Sam Zare obtained his PhD in Applied Linguistics from Massey University, New Zealand, and his research interest covers Intercultural Communication, Socio-cultural Studies, Language and Identity, Cultural Identities, New Media Discourse, Virtual Communities, Weblogs, Online Social Networks, Social Network Analysis, Transnationalism, and Emotion. Sam has also lectured in Assessment in Education and Research Methods and is familiar with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches in Education.  As the Director of Global Digital Citizenship Centre at ILEAD, he is currently working on digital literacy, digital competence, the use of Internet Communications Technologies (ICTs) in educational settings, and ways of empowering students and academics to effectively and ethically participate in and contribute to the digital world around them and become global digital citizens.