Dr. Ethel Agnes P. Valenzuela is a commissioner at the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in the Philippines, chairman of the CHED Technical Working Group on Lifelong Learning and a member of the Technical Panel on Transnational Education and Distance Education. Since April 2023, Dr Valenzuela has been education adviser on the future of education of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Research and Development Platform of the ASEAN Secretariat. She has been deputy chief of party at USAID-UPSKILL and was the first female director of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) Secretariat, the executive arm of the SEAMEO Council of Ministers of Education. She has been a governing board member of various UNESCO bodies. Dr Valenzuela teaches PhD classes at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus. She is an editorial board member of the UP College of Education Philippine Journal of Education Studies. She holds a master’s in science education from Philippine Normal University and a bachelor’s degree in secondary education.