Afghan artivist Omaid Sharifi and UVA student Samman Akbarzada discuss how they use art to advocate for and with the people of Afghanistan, in the U.S. and abroad.
This summer, four University of Virginia student scholars will travel to Tanzania to continue their work with post-doctoral fellows at the Kibong’oto Infectious Diseases Hospital (KIDH), at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The opportunity is the result of a 2023 National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Fogarty International Center grant awarded to Dr. Scott Heysell, director of UVA’s Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE), and Dr.
Samman Akbarzada is a second-year student double majoring in political philosophy, policy and law (PPL) and English literature (APPW), with a minor in urban planning. Like for many students, coming to the University of Virginia was a lonely experience for her at times before finding her community. Unlike many students, she faced that difficulty 7,000 miles from home after fleeing as a political refugee.
Pierre-Christian Fink joined the Global Studies faculty in Fall 2024 and is currently teaching in the Global Commerce in Culture & Society track. His research explores how financial elites create markets that are hidden from the public but powerfully influence citizens’ economic opportunities across the globe.
Ambassador Ashley Wills (A&S ’71, International Politics and Economics) makes a gift each year that enables dozens of UVA students who are eligible for financial aid to apply for and receive a passport at no cost. The passport grant removes a common barrier to participation for education abroad and brings students one step closer to pursuing a global experience.
Anna Chekhovich of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation discusses the use of cryptocurrency as a tool to fund global activist movements with Professor Ian Appel of the Darden School of Business.
Eight UVA students were selected this year to participate in the prestigious Oslo Scholars Program. The goal of the Oslo Scholars Program is to provide students the opportunity to work directly with an international human rights or democracy organization, providing them with direct hands-on experience in how their academic work can have real world impact.
Phoebe Crisman (Global Studies, Architecture) has received an award for Excellence in Education Abroad. Elizabeth Wittner (CAELC), Bonnie Gordon (Music), Fern Hauck (Family Medicine) have received an award for Collaborative Excellence in Public Service for work with local refugee communities.
University of Virginia alumna Michele Buster graduated in 1986 and was among one of the first cohorts of UVA students to study in Valencia. Since then, she has built on her connections to Spain and Italy to build her company Forever Cheese, an importer of fine cheeses and other specialty foods from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Croatia. Buster chose to give back to the University community by creating the Flashrouge Round the World Global Experience Scholarship, enabling extraordinary global experiences for a new generation of students.
Brady Sack is a second-year medical student and was the 2024 Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) Ram Family Foundation scholar. The Ram Family Center for Global Health Scholar Award was established to honor Dr. Bellamane M. Ram and Dr. Anjan Kumari Ram who practiced medicine in India and the United States. The award supports interdisciplinary work in communities in Southern India and is open to students from all schools across Grounds.
Professor Sylvia Tidey (Anthropology, Global Studies) discusses her research on aging transgender women in Indonesia, funded by a CGII center grant. She found that transgender women often fall into a care void as they age, lacking family support and state services. She compared care models in Jakarta, Java, and Bali, focusing on the evolving needs and possibilities for older LGBTQIIA individuals in Indonesia.
In J-Term 2025, 40% of students who traveled abroad through a University of Virginia program were among the 7% of the UVA undergraduate student population with the most financial need. These 200 students were able to study abroad thanks to a new grant made available through Education Abroad.
Rosana Glancy is a fourth year double-majoring in International Relations and Latin American studies with a minor in Spanish. During her time at UVA, she has studied abroad in both Spain and Argentina and is now an Education Abroad intern spreading the word to other students about her experiences, which she plans to use to build a career in international development consulting.
Andreja Siliunas joined the Global Studies program this fall as joint faculty with the Engagements program. A qualitative researcher, Siliunas uses archival, interview-based, and ethnographic methods to study inequality, memory politics, and nationalism in a globalizing world. In 2023, she earned her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University and, following that, taught in UVA’s Sociology department during the 2023-24 academic year.
This fall, the University of Virginia welcomed 416 students from India to Grounds, a significant increase from previous years and part of a larger trend in international education in the US.
The Graduate and Professional Students of Africa (GAPSA) hosted its inaugural ball and awards ceremony this month. Founded just two years ago as part of the International Student Citizen Leader Fellowship, GAPSA began as “a small, informal gathering of African graduate students sharing food and fellowship in their apartments during the pandemic,” said Nnenna Onyima, a Nigerian PhD candidate in French and GAPSA’s founder. Today, GAPSA is a registered CIO with over 100 members and a six-member Executive Board representing diverse programs across Grounds.
In Fall 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 24 Graduate Global Research (GGR) grants, seven Center Grants for individual faculty research, and three Global Programs of Distinction (GPOD) grants.
Join Professor Tyler Jo Smith, director of UVA's Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program, as she explores the fascinating intersections of art, religion, and culture in the production and consumption of alcohol across ancient civilizations. From the symposia of ancient Greece to the bronze vessels of China, this conversation delves into how alcohol shaped rituals, beliefs, and artistic traditions throughout history.
Omokolade Omigbule is a third-year anthropology doctoral student and an interdisciplinary doctoral fellow in Indigenous studies at the University of Virginia. He is a budding Black Atlantic archaeologist from Osun state, southwest Nigeria. In this interview, he discusses his journey into archaeology and his hopes to empower communities through history, and the importance of open-mindedness in the pursuit of knowledge and cross-cultural connection.
The Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation (CGII) was founded in the fall of 2013 by Jeff Legro, then Vice Provost for Global Affairs, to support global, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research. The center awarded its first grants that winter. Now, over a decade later, UVA Global reflects on CGII’s impact.
Discover how UVA professors Allison Bigelow and Rafael Alvarado are partnering with Mayan scholars and communities to preserve and revitalize K’iche and Yukatek languages. Through innovative digital tools, including text encoding and hand-drawn animations, their project bridges a centuries-old narrative with modern technology. Learn about the principles of data sovereignty, the challenges of cultural preservation, and how community-led efforts are shaping the future of Mesoamerican language and literature.
UVA’s Center for Global Health Equity has announced the recipients of the 2024 Dick & Nancy Guerrant Global Health Equity Professor Award. Professors Michaela DuBay, CCC-SLP, Ph.D. and Christopher C.
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.
