Emily Mellen

Ten years ago, the University of Virginia launched a program designed to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Today, the Global Studies Program empowers hundreds of students to tackle the complex global issues that will shape their futures and the world around them.

With a robust lineup of over 30 events, this year’s Global Week engaged students, faculty, and staff in learning and celebrating UVA’s global connections and featured an exciting range of activities, including panels, cultural showcases, and information sessions.

In October, UVA hosted a delegation from Bologna, including Mayor Matteo Lepore, senior city and municipality officials, and faculty from the University of Bologna, to begin a series of conversations with UVA and the City of Charlottesville on our shared areas of interest and potential future collaborations. As part of the visit, Mayor Lepore gave a public talk on municipal leadership in Bologna and his vision for the city.

Gregory Perryman is a third-year politics honors major from Cleveland, Ohio. He participated in the UVA in India: Global Internships program this summer, interning with the Jindal Global University Center for Environment, Sustainability, and Human Development, in Sonipat, India, where he conducted independent research on the political economy of climate justice for e-waste workers.

Katy Quissell, professor of public health, discusses her research project on moral social movements and policy change in Latin America. The project, co-designed with students, explores how activism in Latin America has led to policy changes in reproductive rights, contrasting with the U.S. context.

Jillian Manternach is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in Public Policy and Leadership with a minor in Middle Eastern Language and Culture. After studying abroad in Meknes, Morocco during Summer 2023 and again in Amman, Jordan during J-Term 2024, she decided to join the Education Abroad team as a student intern to encourage other students to have eye-opening global experiences like hers. UVA Global caught up with her to talk about her adventures abroad, the impact on her understanding of her studies, and her advice for other students interested in the global.

On August 4, 2024, the shadow of Pluto swept across the Earth cast by a star 500 times fainter than the eye can detect. As it happened, UVA Astronomy professor Michael Skrutskie staffed a brand new a new 0.5-meter Hubble Optics telescope in the middle of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Skrutskie was part of a six-person team, which also included four UWC faculty and students and fellow UVA Professor Anne Verbiscer. The team had spent about a week in Cape Town setting up the telescope, donated by UVA to UWC, before heading 500 miles north to view the occultation.

Professors Tessa Farmer (Anthropology, Global Studies) and Phoebe Crisman (Architecture, Global Studies) spent the summer in Egypt where they worked on the collaborative research project “Water Reuse, Urban Agriculture, and Heritage Preservation in Cairo's al-Khalifa Neighborhood” in collaboration with Cairo-based Athar Lina Initiative. They spoke with UVA Global about how sustainability and cultural heritage preservation intertwine in this project and why the co-design process is essential to these goals.

This summer, students embarked on a variety of Education Abroad programs, both established and newly introduced, that challenged them to explore the real-world impact of their studies within diverse cultural contexts. Immersed in these unique environments, they gained fresh perspectives that enriched their academic and personal growth.

Hang Nguyen is a third-year PhD student in Statistics and a former Citizen Leader Fellow (2022-2023). For her Citizen Leader Fellowship project, she set out to understand the disproportionate number of Honor reports among international students and conducted a year-long ethnographic study on international students’ perceptions of academic integrity. This project paved the way to her ongoing advocacy and involvement in Honor. She is originally from Vietnam and went to high school and college in North Carolina.

UVA welcomed two distinguished faculty members from South Africa in April as part of a collaborative initiative supported by the Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE). The initiative supports faculty members through a unique PhD training program that bridges their institutions with UVA, facilitating cross-pollination of expertise and ideas.

This spring, Abdulelah Alotaibi completes his MA in Linguistics in the department of Anthropology. Originally from Saudi Arabia, he first came to the United States in 2014 on a Fulbright Language Teaching Assistantship. He spent that year teaching Arabic at the University of Maine and came back from 2018-2019 to participate in a one-year exchange program for Saudi teachers, Building Leadership for Change through School Immersion, at Arizona State University. Alotaibi chatted with UVA Global on his varied experiences in the U.S., his teaching, and his plans for the future.

In Spring 2024, the Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation awarded its latest round of grants to support impactful global research endeavors led by faculty and graduate students. The grants awarded included eleven Graduate Global Research grants, eight Center Grants and one Global Initiative grant for individual faculty research, three Faculty Global Research with Undergraduates grants, and two Global Programs of Distinction grants for larger, collaborative work.

In a special recorded message at the opening of the Spring 2024 Diplomacy Lab Fair at the US Department of State in Washington DC last month, United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that for every problem, someone, somewhere has an answer, or at least an idea worth trying. Some of the ideas that he referred to came from the University of Virginia students participating in the Diplomacy Lab program.

Doctor of Juridical Science Candidate Jeronimo Lau Alberdi discusses the sharing of global legal knowledge and techniques among in Latin American legal systems, including the roles of Supreme and constitutional courts and international human rights education.

Mandy Rispoli leads projects in western Kenya to enhance care access for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Through a community-based approach, Rispoli collaborates with families and stakeholders to co-create solutions tailored to local needs. Her experiences in Kenya also inform her work in Charlottesville, highlighting shared challenges encountered by caregivers and educators across different cultural contexts.

Pieter Giliomee is graduating with M.S. in the McIntire School of Commerce this year. In a conversation with UVA Global, he shares his international background, his reasons for choosing UVA, and his plans for the future.

Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures Edith Clowes speaks about the Black Sea Symposium, her own research in the Black Sea region, and about revisioning its productive futures.

Rolando Vargas is a 2023-2025 Postdoctoral Fellow in the Global Studies program and the Art department. He finished his PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2022 with the dissertation “Kuna Indigenous Media and Knowledge in the Darién Tropical Rain Forest.” He is also a media artist and has presented his creative work across the globe.

Phoebe Crisman, Professor in the School of Architecture and Director of the Global Studies program, speaks about a longstanding collaboration between UVA and the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota and their most recent work on youth education and tallgrass prairie resilience.

In a conversation with UVA Global, Lauren Miller, a professor in UVA’s Environmental Science department shares her work on glaciers, a recent trip to Japan, and the potentially massive impact of Antarctic research on the rest of the world.

The Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation in the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs awarded a new round of grants to support global research for faculty and graduate students.

When Colton Arney was a senior in high school, his English teacher told him about a program that would help set the trajectory for his UVA career. By the end of that fall, he had become a linguistics champion.

Yafrainy Familia is a PhD student in Spanish at UVA. She spoke about her project where she analyzes the work of a series of contemporary Caribbean artists through the lenses of colonial resistance, gender, and race.

Belarusian human rights activist Volya Vysotskaia, Karsh Institute Practitioner Fellow and Serbian political activist Srdja Popovic, and UVA English professor and activist Steve Parks are trying to build a connection between activism and academia. They discuss their recent works and plans for the future.

Second-year Spanish graduate student Elizabeth Mirabal traveled from Havana to UVA to expand her studies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American literature, Caribbean literature, and Cuban studies. She spoke about ways nostalgia permeates her intellectual interests, as well as her personal experiences in Charlottesville, and shared her advice for students interested in international research.

It’s a wrap for another successful year of Global Week at UVA! Global Week is organized by the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs every year and is an opportunity for those interested in global topics to learn more about the research opportunities, global collaborations and services available at UVA. This year more than 30 events across Grounds featured art, politics, and culture from around the world and exciting new contributions from students, including five CIO-sponsored events.

UVA PhD student Beatriz Silva Da Costa talks about procurements and corruption in Brazil.

Hana Bakhit is a first-year graduate student UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. As war rages in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Sudanese citizens are seeking refuge in neighboring Egypt, South Sudan and Chad. Bakhit spoke about how her experiences in Sudan spurred her interest in democracy and governance, how UVA can help with the current humanitarian crisis, and her goals to use her time at Batten to fight for a better Sudan.

Muhammad Tayyab Safdar joined as a Global Studies faculty in Fall 2023. He is currently teaching about global development and perspectives from the Global South based on his research on South-South global development relations, in particular the relationship between China and Pakistan.

Owen Selden is a third-year student majoring in the Human Biology Distinguished Majors Program and a 2023 Center for Global Health Equity University Scholar. He talked about the global health experiences at UVA and in Rwanda that have inspired him to pursue a future in public health.

Academic and creative writer Levi Vonk joined the University of Virginia as a Global Studies Assistant Professor in Fall 2023 and is currently teaching courses on inequality in the media and global migration. He discussed his research, writing, and teaching.

Fernando Operé teaches colonial and 19th century Latin American literature and Spanish and Latin American poetry in UVA’s Spanish, Italian and Portuguese department. As founder and director of UVA’s Valencia program, he looks back as the program celebrates its 40^th anniversary.

UVA History Professor Chris Gratien speaks about his not-so side gig as part of the recording team for the Ottoman History Podcast, an alternative avenue for scholarly conversation on the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East, since its inception in 2011 and how it has enriched his own research and teaching in surprising ways.

UVA Music PhD student Molly Joyce chats with us about her multimedia project "Left and Right: exploring myths of the left side through dance, music, and disability" and her plans for the future.

UVA Psychology Professor Hudson Golino discusses his recent collaborative project with Professor Mariana Teles "New Tools to Study and Prevent Online Mass Manipulation."

In July 2022, two third-year students traveled to Ghana with Professor Kwame Otu for a project called “Scenes of Toxicity.” 

UVA English professor Steve Parks talks to UVA Global about how his interaction with activists and advocates has changed his academic work and what he and UVA's Democratic Futures Project plan to do next to support and promote advocates for democracy.

Iranian American Professor Mona Kasra in the Department of Drama speaks about a recent UVA panel on the situation in Iran, the role of visual media in the crisis, how this impacts her work, and the role the diaspora and higher education institutions can play.

Human Biology major Hamna Shafiq was fueled by her personal experiences to pursue studies in global health. Now a third-year, she is primed for medical school through her research in undernutrition in vulnerable global populations.

UVA Global caught up with Art Department Professor Federico Cuatlacuatl to talk about his artistic and scholarly practice and his ongoing collaboration with the UnDocu+ Collective, which included a recent event at UVA and in Charlottesville.

International student and researcher Adrián Gutierrez speaks to UVA Global about muons, his journey to UVA, and his advice for international students.