NC State Global Celebrates 2020 and 2021 Outstanding Global Engagement Award Recipients
On April 28, 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.
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 2020, there were eight finalists and four recipients, and in 2021, there were 10 finalists and four recipients. Please read more about the 2020 finalists and recipients here.
2021 Outstanding Global Engagement Award Recipients
Dr. Rachel Cook
- Carl Alwin Schenck Associate Professor, Forestry and Environmental Resources
- College of Natural Resources
Dr. Cook is the Director of the Forest Productivity Cooperative (FPC), the world’s largest silviculture research cooperative and the only multi-institutional and international forestry cooperative. In response to the pandemic, she shifted FPC engagement online which proved critical to continuing to meet the needs of the forestry industry. In addition to her work with the FPC, Dr. Cook conducts research, teaches a course in the forest management undergraduate major, and has taught in an international course exchange program with doctoral students in Sweden.
Dr. Andrew Patrick Grieshop
- Associate Professor, Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
- College of Engineering
Dr. Grieshop has a sustained focus on improving energy access and environmental conditions in the developing world. His field research activities span three continents and a global perspective infuses his teaching and mentoring as well. He has served as the faculty advisor for the NC State chapter of Engineers Without Borders and co-developed a course in the Masters of International Studies program on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Dr. Grieshop was recently engaged as an expert in a pan-EU process to provide guidance on measurements of important components of combustion particulate emissions.
Keith Smith
- Director, Board Operations and Sustainability
- University Dining
Since 2017, Global Engagement has collaborated with NC State Dining to promote global cultures through food experiences on campus. Under Keith’s leadership, NC State Dining has partnered with international students and university departments to plan and deliver numerous authentic global dining experiences. These efforts have helped make our international students feel at home on campus and given domestic students an opportunity to experience global food.
Michelle Thompson
- Senior Associate Director, Scholarships & Financial Aid
- Enrollment Management and Services, Provost Unit
For many years, Michelle has been instrumental in making study abroad possible for thousands of students with the support of scholarships, loans, and grants. Through the challenges of COVID-19, Michelle provided an extraordinary level of support in spring 2021. She worked tirelessly to ensure that individual students were able to retain financial aid when their study abroad programs were cancelled and they were forced to quickly return to the United States.
2021 Outstanding Global Engagement Award: Finalists
Dr. Nora Haenn
- Professor, Sociology/Anthropology
- College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr. Haenn has made important contributions to extend the global reach of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and is a founding faculty member of the International Studies Program. Her research is grounded in the ethnographic study of a community of economically marginalized farmers in Calakmul, Mexico. She is considered by many scholars to be the founder of the Conservation and Society subarea within anthropology for her work at the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve and has received a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Fellowship in support of her work on conservation, immigration, and land use in Mexico.
Dr. Jane Hoppin
- Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
- College of Sciences
Prior to joining NC State in 2013, Dr. Hoppin worked at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) where she was a founding Principal Investigator of the world-renowned Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which has served to implement countless protections for agricultural workers and their families. She was also involved in the Norway Mother and Child Study, assessing associations between environmental exposures and health data. Since coming to NC State, Dr. Hoppin’s work has expanded globally. In 2016, she and a co-collaborator initiated the ISA Study (Infantes y Salud Ambiental), a prospective cohort study of women and children living in the banana growing region of Costa Rica. This study will provide information on pesticides widely used both in the US and globally. The ISA Study has outreach as its main focus, including teaching primary school students about the environment and implementing.educational enrichment activities. Dr. Hoppin also trains students and post-doctoral fellows on global pesticide exposure risks at NC State and in Costa Rica.
Dr. Brian Jackson
- Associate Professor, Horticultural Science
- College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Dr. Jackson believes that through travel and engagement he can “bring the world into his classroom.” Since many students enrolled in horticulture have not traveled abroad prior to attending NC State, Dr. Jackson broadens his students’ perspective by illustrating cultural differences among horticulture operations across the globe. He has coordinated international trips for undergraduate students, served on committees of three international Ph.D. students at universities in France and Germany, and has been an invited lecturer at several international universities. He is currently serving a three-year term as an invited External Examiner for the Horticulture Curriculum at the University College Dublin, Ireland.
Dr. Greg Lewbart
- Professor, Clinical Sciences
- College of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Lewbart joined the faculty at the NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1993 and is a diplomat of both the American and European College of Zoological Medicine. He has established working international relationships with global agencies and organizations from 5 continents. Dr. Lewbart does extensive work in health assessment and wildlife conservation in the Galápagos Islands, which includes fieldwork and research with DVM students. He has adjunct faculty status at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA.
Dr. John Nietfeld
- Professor, Educational Psychology, Teacher Education and Learning Sciences
- College of Education
In the 2016-17 school year, Dr. Nietfeld was awarded a Fulbright Core Teaching and Research Scholar Award with which he spent a year in Estonia. This award allowed for the initial development of the Missions with Monty program with collaborators in Spain, Australia, Slovakia, New Zealand, and Grenada. He is a regular visiting lecturer at various international universities. At NC State, with the assistance of Dr. Margareta Thomson, he helped to develop the first study abroad education course at the Prague Institute (now NC State Prague). He has served on the graduate committees of 16 international students and advised six international graduate students. He regularly recruits international students during his various trips abroad.
Jeong Powell
- Director, International Admissions and Recruitment
- Office of Undergraduate Admissions
Within three years of joining the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Ms. Powell has developed the international admissions team and tripled international undergraduate enrollment. She implemented Undergraduate Conditional Admission at NC State through the Intensive English Program (IEP) and her work helped facilitate the development of Graduate Conditional Admission through the IEP at NC State as well. Additionally, Ms. Powell contributed to bringing a King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Gifted Student Program to NC State, which brought more visibility and revenue to the university. She also enrolled the first cohort of Omani government sponsored students on campus and has contributed to building and strengthening relationships with international alumni.
You can watch a recording of the event on our YouTube channel.