NC State Global Celebrates 2022 Outstanding Global Engagement Award Recipients

On April 20, NC State Global hosted its annual Global Engagement Exposition to celebrate finalists and recipients of the Outstanding Global Engagement Award, Jackson Rigney Service Award and the Distinguished Alumni Award.

You can watch a recording of the awards ceremony here.

The Outstanding Global Engagement Award

The Outstanding Global Engagement Award encourages and recognizes exceptional accomplishment in globally engaged teaching, research, extension, and/or engagement and economic development. Finalists have a well-established and ongoing record of international activities while working at NC State, going above and beyond regular job responsibilities. In 2022, 9 applications were received and 6 award recipients were selected. 

2022 Outstanding Global Engagement Award Recipients

• Dr. Maria Avramova
  • Professor of Nuclear Engineering, University Faculty Scholar, Director of Consortium for Nuclear Power, and Coordinator of CTF User’s Group
  • College of Engineering

Dr. Avramova’s global scholarship is marked by her engagement in international activities spanning countries, international education, and research institutions. Her globally engaged activity has brought outstanding recognition to the Department of Nuclear Engineering and NC State University at large. She initiated and founded the Consortium for Nuclear Power (CNP), which is a new consortium in the Department of Nuclear Engineering with cross-sector membership. Maria also developed and manages the COBRA-TF code (CTF) User’s Group, which includes users from the world’s nuclear community for the unique use of this code. Her educational offerings in international workshops and mini-courses has attracted researchers to join the Department of Nuclear Engineering as visiting scholars and postdoctoral fellows and attracted international students to pursue their graduate degree from NC State.

• Dr. Carla Barbieri
  • Professor, Parks Recreation Tourism Management
  • College of Natural Resources

Over her career at NC State, Dr. Carla Barbieri has built an internationally recognized research and engagement program around agritourism. A recent peer-reviewed bibliometric analysis indicated that Dr. Barbieri is the most productive and cited scholar in her field of study. Her work addresses a global agricultural challenge of helping small farmers compete in the global market in ways that sustain culture, environments, and of course, livelihoods. Her Agritourism and Societal Wellbeing (ASW) Lab attracts students from around the world. The innovation of her research, coupled with its international scope, has helped her forge several international research collaborations. Barbieri has established strong collaborations with universities in Peru, Spain and Italy, which not only contribute to research but also extend to her undergraduate teaching, as she utilizes examples and experience to discuss sustainable tourism planning within varying geographic and cultural contexts. Additionally, Dr. Barbieri has developed a strong network of international collaborators to advance research and practices that serve women entrepreneurs and indigenous communities.

• Laura Boyd
  • Assistant Director and CARES Coordinator
  • Prevention Services

For many years, Laura has consistently demonstrated her willingness to go above and beyond to provide holistic support to study abroad students. Following a difficult, spring 2020, when hundreds of students were forced to quickly return to the US from studying abroad, Laura provided an extraordinary level of support to those in the midst of significant academic and personal upheaval and stress. Another testament to Laura’s dedication was her creation of virtual care packages for students studying in South Korea during the summer of 2021. Concerned about students’ wellbeing during the mandatory two-week isolation period upon entering the country,  Laura created virtual care packages which included: recommendations for K-dramas, home workouts, guided meditations, and much more. The proactive and tailored support for these students is exemplary of the mission of NC State Prevention Services and, most importantly, Laura’s propensity for creative collaborations across campus and international borders.

• Dr. Mo-Yuen Chow
  • Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • College of Engineering

Dr. Chow is a leader in the international engagement programs of the Department of Electrical and Computer and an internationally recognized researcher. Dr. Chow has been diligently and tirelessly engaging global communities to collaborate and share his passion for energy management technologies to provide reliable and sustainable energy systems in developing countries around the world. His energy-enhancing technologies are being put to practice here at home and in international companies such as Huawei, Total and Samsung. Since 2008, Dr. Chow has been actively engaged in partnerships with Zhejiang University (ZJU) in Hangzhou, China where he was a visiting Chang Jiang Chair Professor from 2010 to2013) and has been the visiting Qiushi Chair Professor since 2015. He often hosts visiting ZJU scholars and students here at NC State,  NCSU and arranges for NCSU students to visit ZJU to enrich international engagement. Dr. Chow has hosted more than 75 international visitors at NC State, an effective way to engage firsthand collaborations. 

• Dr. Nora Haenn
  • Professor, Sociology/Anthropology
  • College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Dr. Haenn’s international research has made important contributions to internationalization, extending the global reach of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and, most importantly, for the NC State University community as a whole. A founding faculty member of the International Studies Program, Dr. Haenn’s research focuses on conservation, immigration, and land use in Mexico. Dr. Haenn’s research is grounded in the ethnographic study of a community of economically marginalized smallhold farmers (called campesinos) from Calakmul, Mexico. She has devoted more than three years of her academic life to living among the campesinos, working with them at times as a participant-observer, all while gathering the data for her research. In several ways, this scholarly work has contributed to policy implementation in Mexico. Dr. Haenn has also used her expertise to enrich the training in NC State’s Law Enforcement Executive Program in the School of Public and International Affairs around issues related to immigration and working with immigrant populations from Latin America and in building trusting advising relationships and culturally-relevant guidance for NC State’s first-generation and Latinx students in International Studies. 

• Dr. Jillian Haeseler
  • Assistant Teaching Professor, Foreign Languages and Literatures
  • College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Since joining the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in 2014, Dr. Haeseler has sought out several key opportunities for professional training in areas of pedagogy and technology. She has enriched both her department and campus as a whole by consistently seeking out opportunities to be an active, globally engaged faculty member. Immediately after she was hired, she received a prestigious Fulbright lecturing grant to teach at various institutions in central and northern Chile. During the fall semester of 2016, she became a consultant for Indonesia’s Islamic Universities. Additionally, Dr. Haeseler has served as the Academic Director of the Fulbright Junior Faculty Development Program in collaboration with the Global Training Initiative, where she organized workshops and cultural activities for visiting English teachers from Lebanon. Unhampered by the pandemic, she worked on another collaboration with the NC State Global Training Initiative in partnership with the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, designing a program that leads to a Teaching Certificate in English as a Foreign Language for middle and high school English teachers. 

2022 Outstanding Global Engagement Award Finalist

• Dr. Carla Fröhlich
  • Assistant Professor, Physics
  • College of Sciences

Among Dr. Fröhlich’s multiple accomplishments in global engagement, is her role as a co-founder and on-going lead organizer of the Fulbright-Cottrell Workshop “Building Bridges.” The Fulbright-Cottrell Workshop “Building Bridges” has tremendous impact on junior faculty members in Germany and in the U.S. while simultaneously advancing NC State’s reputation as a leading university. The Fulbright-Cottrell Workshop serves junior faculty in Germany to enhance all aspects of their academic careers.

• Dr. William Hunt
  • William Neal Reynolds Distinguished University Professor & Extension Specialist
  • Biological and Agricultural Engineering
  • College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Dr. Hunt is the co-founder of the Stormwater Best Management Practice, or BMP, Inspection and Maintenance Certification Program. He is the lead instructor for 25-30 trainings annually specifically designed for the stormwater industry and has engaged a global audience through seminars and workshops in Australia, China, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Hunt also created a highly impactful study abroad class on Roman Engineering taught at the University of Oviedo, Spain, in summer 2019. This course was canceled due to the pandemic, but Dr. Hunt led the first NC State study abroad trip in 2021 to Italy over fall break as part of this course.

• Prof. Scott Townsend
  • Professor, Graphic Design
  • College of Design

Professor Townsend has been active and successful in global engagement for more than twenty years, driven by his research and scholarship interests. In Greece, he has developed practices and projects jointly in education, historical preservation, and community involvement, and in museum design to help preserve local identity and practices. His most recent “Living Histories” project is now supported by the Greek Ministry of Education, with interest in developing a national program based on his proposals and work. He has also created a study abroad program that brings together NC State students to work with interdisciplinary researchers and communities in Greece.