Global Engagement Report 2020-2022

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT 2020-2022

WHAT STARTS HERE

CHANGES THE W RLD

Located in the heart of a city known for its technology and artistry, The University of Texas at Austin is the birthplace of ideas and inventions that change the world. The university forges global connections to build an academic community that inspires creative expression, fosters open dialogue, and transcends borders to reshape the future.

By pursuing a bold strategic plan that expands its international collaborative efforts, UT Austin is on pace to becoming the world’s highest-impact public research university. Committed to advancing global education, leading in research and innovation, and uniting Longhorns in global service, we live out the iconic words: What starts here changes the world.

PhotocourtesyofRomilPatil

As part of our drive to become the world’s highest-impact public research university, The University of Texas at Austin must develop future leaders who understand and embrace the global context. Key strengths make us uniquely suited to this important work: the scope of our faculty expertise and research; increasingly experiential and interdisciplinary learning opportunities; and collaboration with alumni, government, industry, scholars, and community partners. In addition to driving entrepreneurship, new discoveries, and global engagement, our collective efforts are helping UT Austin and our graduates address society’s most critical challenges.

—Jay Hartzell, Ph.D. President, The University of Texas at Austin

A Letter from the Senior Vice Provost for Global Engagement

It is an honor and privilege to share this biennial report as a reminder of the progress we have made with The University of Texas at Austin’s global engagement efforts and the challenges we have overcome in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are energized as travel around the world has resumed and the Forty Acres is bustling again with in-person activity.

With this renewed sense of normalcy and President Hartzell’s ambitious “Change Starts Here: UT’s 10-Year Strategic Plan to Increase Impact,” we will intensify our pursuit to empower students, faculty, staff, alumni, and partners in global education.

I am pleased to highlight a select number of salient initiatives and accomplishments, as I know that in the months and years ahead, we will work toward the bold and attainable goal of becoming the highest-impact public research university in the world.

• UT Austin has partnered with the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund to provide safe refuge and academic opportunities on our campus to threatened and displaced scholars.

• In the spring of 2022, we opened the university’s first Global Gateway in Mexico City. Our presence in the region bolsters faculty and research partnerships as well as study and internship opportunities, and fosters increased alumni engagement.

• We established a Global Alumni Relations unit within Texas Global to connect with more than 500,000 alumni living around the world, apprising them of the university’s

myriad activities, and hosting academic virtual and in-person events.

• Texas Global established funding opportunities for faculty across all disciplines to integrate global learning into their research and classrooms. In the past two years, we have awarded grants to 81 faculty members working in 39 countries to support research, teaching, internships, and publications, and to host large-scale on- and off-campus events to advance the university’s academic mission.

The stories you will read in this report span UT Austin’s 18 colleges and schools, as well as our centers, institutes,

and units. They represent our vibrant community of scholars, students, staff, and partner organizations committed to intellectual inquiry, driven to make our world better, and eager to address global challenges. May these accomplishments leave you inspired, invigorated, and curious about our next chapter.

Hook ’em,

Sonia Feigenbaum, Ph.D. Senior Vice Provost for Global Engagement Chief International Officer

Photo by Marsha Miller

UT Austin Wins Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization

The University of Texas at Austin was one of five recipients of the 2021 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization, an honor given by NAFSA: Association of International Educators for overall excellence in global engagement on campus. The award recognized UT’s internationally focused initiatives and innovative global approach to student outcomes, faculty research, institutional development, and alumni engagement.

For almost 140 years, the university has been committed to supporting faculty members, scholars, students, and alumni to address pressing global challenges. UT Austin’s internationalization strategy is responsive to the interests of its faculty and diverse student population. As such, Texas Global connects the campus community with international partners through innovative initiatives that include a robust global virtual exchange program, funding opportunities to support transnational research collaboration and faculty-led internships, engaging alumni programming, and global professional training that serves students across campus.

For 13th Year, UT Austin Ranks as Top Producer of Fulbright Students

FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS

UT Austin was listed among the U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most Fulbright U.S. Students in the 2021-2022 academic year. Twelve Longhorns received Fulbright awards, ranking the university at No. 17 overall and No. 2 among public universities. This was the 13th year UT Austin achieved top-producing institution status, having coordinated Fulbright grants over 18 years for a total of 216 recipients.

Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top-producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists annually.

UT Austin Honored as 20-Year Top Producer of Gilman Scholars

UT Austin was recognized by the U.S. State Department for having produced the most Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship recipients over the past 20 years in the large institution category. More than 590 students from UT Austin have received Gilman Scholarships since 2001.

“We are honored to be recognized for our commitment to the Gilman Scholarship

Seal of Excellence

Program, which in 20 years has provided more than $2.8 million in education abroad funding for our students,” said Sonia Feigenbaum, senior vice provost of global engagement and chief international officer. “With more than 22 percent of our undergraduate student body eligible to receive the Pell Grant, the Gilman Scholarship has long been a pillar of our strategy to increase access to international education.”

UT Austin Recognized for Diversity and Inclusion in Education Abroad Programs

The Institute of International Education (IIE) recognized UT Austin in 2021 for making study abroad more accessible and inclusive to all students. The university received the IIE Seal of Excellence for its strategic commitment to the Generation Study Abroad initiative and achieving its institutional goal of doubling the number of UT students studying abroad in Latin America by 2020.

IIE launched Generation Study Abroad in 2014 as a five-year initiative to create a space for the international education community to provide resources and make a commitment to increasing and diversifying the number of U.S. students studying abroad by the end of the decade.

$2.8 million IN GILMAN SCHOLARSHIP FUNDING PROVIDED TO 590+ STUDENTS

GL BAL ADVANCING Education

The University of Texas at Austin is preparing the next generation with the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in a global economy and society. Our commitment to a first-rate international education prepares graduates who think deeply, communicate across cultures, and solve problems in an ever-changing world. UT Austin empowers the whole student with interdisciplinary courses and transformative experiences, provides pathways for faculty to advance their careers, and trains leaders from around the globe.

I have lost a lot of fear here. Sometimes you can feel really small, but this program has ... given me the empowerment to grow as an entrepreneur.

—Marlene Calderón, Fellow, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

the Forty Acres

Every summer, UT Austin hosts emerging entrepreneurs from across the world in region-specific Young Leaders initiatives sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. The programs immerse participants in academic coursework, professional mentoring and networking, leadership training, community service, and cultural programming.

Texas Global is pleased to offer the stories of some exemplary entrepreneurs who visited Austin in Summer 2022 for the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative, and Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative

SOUTH AFRICAN MANDELA WASHINGTION-YALI FELLOW BELIEVES MUSIC IS KEY TO

At age 12, Kiara Ramklass fell in love with the marimba, an African xylophone-type instrument. During high school, she started a marimba band as a community outreach program, later developing it into a social enterprise called Marimba Jam. Behind the effort was the goal of improving education inequality in her home country of South Africa by increasing access to free music education programs for children in under-resourced schools.

Ramklass, now 27, is passionate about offering every child the benefits of an education in African music. “I truly believe in the power of music as a tool for

Ramklass wanted to augment her professional skills to propel her enterprise further, so she applied to the Business and Entrepreneurship Institute offered by the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative (MWF-YALI).

Since the inaugural cohort in 2014, UT Austin has been one of 26 institutions in the United States to host MWF-YALI participants from across Africa. With an acceptance rate of just 1 percent,

admission to the Mandela Washington Fellowship is extremely selective.

“When you do make it, it’s a foot in the door. Now you’re amongst some of the brightest minds on the continent,” Ramklass said, referencing MWF-YALI alumna Mbali Ntuli, who has risen to prominence in South African politics. “In 20 to 30 years, the people going through this program will be the leaders of African countries.”

364 FELLOWS 85 COUNTRIES

2014-2022

HONDURAN ENTREPRENEUR AND YLAI FELLOW CREATES APP TO REVOLUTIONIZE

When Marlene Calderón earned a civil engineering degree in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, she was told that as a woman, she couldn’t get a job in the field. But rather than defeating her, that dismissal spurred Calderón to create a specialized software application that could revolutionize her industry.

A crucial step on Calderón’s path was applying to the prestigious Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI), a fellowship program funded by the U.S. State Department. For the initiative,

emerging business leaders from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada arrive with a specific business challenge in mind. Each Fellow then receives targeted training, resources, and guidance to help solve their problem.

Calderón’s main challenge was financing her app, Rolo, which connects people

who need goods transported with professionals in the trucking industry.

During her professional placement with the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network, Calderón learned about implementing financial incentives for clients. She also benefited from the personalized feedback of YLAI mentor Joy Patterson, a program manager for Dell Technologies.

After completing the YLAI program, Calderón said she would return to Honduras more confident in her financing approach and in herself as a female leader in business.

“I have lost a lot of fear here. This program has ... given me the empowerment to grow as an entrepreneur.” She added, “We have a female president who aims to empower women in the same way. I’m hoping over the next four years, the perspective in my country will change.”

Pictured: Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, Summer 2022. Photo courtesy of Lucas Gomes

Pictured: Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative, Summer 2022

MICROBUSINESS RUNS IN THE FAMILY FOR EMERGING FILIPINO BUSINESS LEADER AND YSEALI FELLOW

Patrick Manuel grew up in the Philippines, where his father and grandmother owned a discount store, and his mother worked as a street food vendor.

“My whole educational background at home was built by microentrepreneurs,” said Manuel. “I see how significant microentrepreneurs are, especially in a third-world country like the Philippines, where not everyone is granted an educational opportunity.”

After founding his university’s Entrepreneurship Club, he assembled a program for aspiring business leaders, with lessons on marketing, accounting, and securing sales permits—but the pandemic delayed his implementing it.

Simultaneously, he discovered the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), which deepens engagement among young leaders on regional and global challenges, bolstering ties between the United States and Southeast Asia.

Manuel leveraged his club leadership experience on his application entry and was accepted in Spring 2021, but the pandemic prevented participants from traveling. Instead, Texas Global offered a sevenweek virtual fellowship to 20 entrepreneurs from 11 countries.

Courses focused on leadership, diversity, social enterprises, U.S. society and culture, business sustainability, and economic development. Subsequently, the YSEALI Fellows were offered a chance to travel to UT Austin for an additional 12-day study tour in June 2022.

When the Fellows pitched their projects in person, Manuel was inspired by discussing his vision with other young, accomplished leaders, and soaking in all they shared.

“You really get to appreciate the fact that societal issues in your country are also present in other countries,” said Manuel, adding, “What’s more interesting is how these young leaders worked to be part of the solution.”

HAITIAN ENTREPRENEUR AND YLAI FELLOW WORKS TO EMPOWER WOMEN AND GIRLS

Vanessa Charles, born and raised in Haiti in a family of four, grew up to earn a degree in economics as well as numerous certifications in entrepreneurship, management, leadership, and communication. When she wanted more, she applied to the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI).

Charles characterized her time in the YLAI program as her “ray of sunshine.” The program facilitates commercial, entrepreneurial, academic, and cultural exchanges while building sustainable networks between young entrepreneurs and business leaders around the world.

“I have always loved working with peers and friends to share my knowledge, so I take great pleasure to be part of teams,” wrote Charles in a blog post.

Her YLAI activities took her to Austin, along with 10 other fellows from various countries and industries. The cohort worked extensively with mentors at Dell Technologies and other local tech companies.

“The scholarship holders ... have had a tremendous impact on me,” said Charles. “The exchanges, the dreams, the connections, the stories, the passion ... everything blew my mind.”

Having previously worked in Haiti to train and empower women and girls via a program called Lev’Elles Up, Charles found she deeply enjoyed her YLAI professional placement at the Austin nonprofit Girls Empowerment Network. Her work involved training girls in civics, empowerment, self-esteem, citizenship, education, art, and creative industries.

“It’s so fascinating to meet these young girls,” said Charles. “Discussing their dreams and their expectations was one of the highlights of the program.”

Pictured: Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, Summer 2022

Pictured: Young Southeast Asian Leaders

Pictured at center: Patrick Manuel

Collaboration with University of Karachi Creates Connections Through Film Studies

The South Asia Institute in the College of Liberal Arts received a grant in Spring 2022 from the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Consulate in Karachi to facilitate an 18-month partnership with Pakistan’s University of Karachi to focus on film studies and filmmaking.

“This partnership reaffirms a long-standing, deep, and mutually beneficial commitment between the Department of RadioTelevision-Film and our counterparts in Pakistan,” said Noah Isenberg, chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film. “We very much look forward to welcoming additional students and faculty from Karachi in the future.”

Fulbright Egypt Academic

Director

Balances Scholastic Rigor and Student Success

Thomas Connolly has a goal: to change the intimidating message of engineering education. He believes engineering students and scholars can benefit from a welcoming academic environment and supportive

The program is sponsored by the U.S. State Department to build relationships and foster teaching and research collaborations between Egyptian scholars and universities in the United States. UT Austin has served as a host institution since 2019, with cooperation from the Cockrell School of Engineering and the Faculty Innovation Center.

When Connolly heard about the 10-week Fulbright Egypt JFDP and the Engineering Education Institute that comprises four of those weeks, he realized that they combine his three main passions: teaching, engineering, and international education. He jumped at the opportunity to serve as the academic director for the JFDP and develop the institute for the Egyptian faculty.

In 2022, eight junior faculty came from Egypt to the Forty Acres to attend the JFDP. These Fulbright scholars, whose work focuses on engineering for renewable energy, engaged with UT Austin researchers and faculty but focused mainly on classroom methodology, cultural exchange, and learning the culture of U.S. higher education. Connolly advised the visiting faculty to acknowledge the balancing act required to create cutting-edge engineering programs alongside methods that support student success. The trick, he said, is not to view academic rigor and student success as mutually exclusive objectives.

“The message we’re trying to get across to students now is: We want all of you to be successful,” Connolly said.

COCKRELL SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING TEXAS GLOBAL

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS MOODY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION

Photo by Sahar Ali

Photo by Zahra Tapal

Inspired Cohorts Return from President’s Award Journeys with Broadened Perspectives

From Europe to India to South America and beyond, the President’s Award for Global Learning provides perspectivechanging experiences to students and faculty from UT Austin.

As the signature program of the university’s International Board of Advisors, the President’s Award annually contributes funding and resources to form interdisciplinary teams that develop and implement research programs around the world. Participants’ travel is fully funded, with an honorarium for faculty and an implementation budget. Awardees identify issues in various regions of the world and propose solutions through programbased collaborations alongside their international partners.

The 2021-2022 teams, representing more than a dozen colleges and disciplines, focused their programs on protecting the fragile ecosystem of the Galápagos Islands; exploring and addressing academic racism in the

United Kingdom and United States; and discovering how fashion companies strive to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice across production nodes in Sweden and India.

For Jayelon Evans, a U.S. Navy veteran and senior studying kinesiology in the College of Education, exploring London was already on his bucket list. The President’s Award helped pave his route, providing him the unique opportunity to lead conversations on race at some of the most prestigious institutions in the United Kingdom.

“I can say this with 100 percent confidence: This is one of the most impactful experiences of my entire life,” said Evans.

Photo courtesy of Ria Goyal

Photo courtesy of Katrina Fierro

Photo courtesy of Peniel Joseph

Photo courtesy of the Office of the President

Photo courtesy of David Heymann

Photo courtesy of Ria Goyal

Global Virtual Exchange Fosters Intercultural Connections for Students and Faculty

Texas Global awarded funding for several new courses on the exciting roster of Global Virtual Exchange (GVE), to be co-taught with higher education institutions from Brazil, Mexico, England, and South Korea.

Under this initiative, faculty from UT Austin are invited each year to apply for a grant to develop and implement a virtual exchange between students and an international partner institution.

This GVE opportunity sets in motion the international collaborations that meet the university’s longstanding goals of deepening bonds abroad and facilitating cross-cultural exchanges.

Alida Louisa Perrine, one of the Fall 2021 GVE grant recipients, co-taught “Black Digital Feminisms in Brazil” with Carla Ramos Munzanzu from Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará in Brazil. The GVE grant allowed Perrine to teach the “course of her dreams” as part of her career goal of connecting U.S. and Brazilian conversations about Black feminism.

Alice McCoy-Bae’s GVE course, “Bringing Korea into the Classroom: Third-Year Korean I” was a content-enhanced intermediate language course with a corresponding focus on intercultural exchange, taught in collaboration with the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea.

Octavio Kano-Galván centered his GVE course curriculum on social media content creation in the interest

of yielding fruitful cross-cultural exchange. His course, “Digital Social Media Production,” was offered in 2021 and co-taught with the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. “360 Video Production” was co-taught in Spring 2022 with Anahuac University in Mexico and De Montfort University in the United Kingdom.

Maritza Gutierrez, a UT Austin student in the production course, found that the participants’ cultural differences led to a diversity of perspectives and approaches, which enhanced the work they all produced.

“It was great to see how their editing and filming styles were different to those of our own here in America, as well as the topics,” said Gutierrez. “The students [from Mexico] are very talented, and it was an honor to experience their work.”

Anti-Bullying in Azerbaijan: Collaboration Grows from Professional Fellows Program

In 2021, Zahida Israfilova, an advisor for the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs in Azerbaijan, connected with R. Keeth Matheny, an Austin-based socialemotional learning expert who serves as a host for the UT Austin’s Professional Fellows Program (PFP).

Implemented by American Councils and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, PFP is designed to build leadership capabilities, professional skills, and sustainable partnerships between emerging leaders from the United States and other countries.

Texas Global received a PFP grant from the State Department to host

the reciprocal global exchange program, paving the way for the unique collaboration between Matheny and Israfilova.

Through hours of collaboration, Matheny and Israfilova brought anti-bullying lessons to Azerbaijani schools with great success.

“It’s a spark,” said Matheny. “You’re lighting a spark with key educational stakeholders and decision makers, showing that this is a paradigm shift

in education. We need to think of students not just as stuffing them with information, but also that it’s not just the brain that comes to school: It’s a whole child, and we need to educate that whole child.”

In December 2022, Matheny was informed by the State Department that he received a second PFP grant, this time allowing him to introduce his curriculum to students and educators in Malaysia.

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

McCOMBS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

International Education Fee Scholarship Recipient Gains World-Changing Skills

The first student to receive the International Education Fee Scholarship (IEFS), alumna Shania Robinson, from Trinidad and Tobago, was ready to change the world after making the most of her four years on the Forty Acres.

The IEFS, a highly competitive award covering up to four years of tuition and expenses, allowed Robinson to give back to the Austin community, support Caribbean students on campus, and engage with Texas Consult Your Community, a student-led organization that helps local nonprofits and small businesses grow by providing free consulting services.

These experiences helped Robinson tap into her passions for solving climate change, food insecurity, and resource scarcity.

“Right away, the emphasis was on service and really giving back to your community,” she said.

In May 2021, Robinson graduated with two degrees: one in finance from the McCombs School of Business and another in international relations and global studies from the College of Liberal Arts. She soon began working as a business analyst for McKinsey & Company, where she planned to specialize in the public and social sectors.

Photo courtesy of Zahida Israfilova

Knight Center Celebrates 20 Years of Supporting Journalism in the Americas

In August 2022, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas celebrated its 20th anniversary with a seminar held virtually and on campus at UT Austin. The center was founded in 2002 by Rosental Calmon Alves, who holds the UNESCO Chair in Communication and Knight Chair in Journalism at the Moody College of Communication’s School of Journalism and Media.

Associate Director of the Knight Center Mallary Tenore recalled the center’s initial focus on capacity building to help regional journalists develop self-sustaining organizations that improved journalism and defended freedom of the press. She lauded the LatAm Journalism Review, the center’s digital journal published in Portuguese, Spanish, and English.

The Knight Center’s first online course was launched in 2003; over the next nine years, more than 100 courses were offered to more than 7,000 students. After launching Massive Open Online Courses in 2012, the center’s distance learning program has reached more than 275,000 students in 200-plus countries and territories in the last decade.

Conferences organized by the Knight Center, such as the International Symposium on Online Journalism, provide spaces for leading scholars and practitioners to meet and discuss the main challenges in journalism on a global level.

Global Innovation Lab Supports Emerging Saudi Entrepreneurs

In 2021-2022, the Global Innovation Lab (GIL) at Texas Global led the Empowering Saudi Women Through Entrepreneurship program with assistance by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and support of the U.S. Consulate General Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

The initiative focused on building capacity for emerging women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia to strengthen their entrepreneurial ecosystems and increase access to Saudi domestic and global markets. Participants acquired building blocks for creating sustainable businesses and crafting unique business models to bring products and services to market.

The Innovation Readiness Training™ curriculum combined self-paced training and online exercises with immersive inperson learning.

In one of the first programs of its kind that included independent travel for Saudi Arabian women, GIL hosted an inaugural cohort of 11 entrepreneurs at UT Austin in July 2022, allowing participants to immerse themselves in the local business community.

”The program has been a turning point not only for my startup but also for me as a person,” said participant Haneen Alnajjar, CEO and founder of Sicilena Jewelry.

Evaluations on pitch presentations informed her perspective on investors’ values, Alnajjar said, and she implemented techniques from design thinking and customer development courses into her startup’s operations.

“Another thing that had a tremendous impact on my viewpoint ... was the panel held by women entrepreneurs in Austin, where we discussed several matters in the entrepreneurial space,” Alnajjar added. “It gave us the opportunity to learn from knowledgeable women.”

A new grant will allow GIL to build on the success of the original program to create a mentorship network for Saudi women entrepreneurs in October 2023.

The Global Innovation Lab partners with governments, universities, and industries to support entrepreneurs in overcoming local challenges, creating jobs, and driving sustainable economic development. Since 2000, GIL has presented programs in more than 44 countries, resulting in the creation of thousands of new jobs and more than $1 billion in global economic impact.

Photos courtesy of Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Pictured at right: Rosental Calmon Alves

Students Flourish in Unique Environment of Global Career Launch

Whether engaging in wildlife recovery research in Botswana or connecting women to entrepreneurial opportunities in Guatemala, Longhorn students are experiencing unique, hands-on internships and research projects around the world. These result from Global Career Launch (GCL), an initiative that partners with the university’s global network of corporations and institutions.

Launched by Texas Global in 2020, GCL began to strategically grow UT Austin’s international internship options while supporting prospective students and

faculty directors with funding and advising. The range of opportunities ensures high-impact, in-country work across multiple fields.

“Global Career Launch is an exemplary program for its relevance to the career objectives of participating students,” said Sonia Feigenbaum, senior vice provost for global engagement and

Melanie Parra: Mexican Pride Shines with Texas Volleyball

chief international officer. “The program design supports faculty in cultivating their connections with organizations and universities worldwide, while at the same time expanding international specialized internship and research opportunities for UT Austin students.”

Texas Global has provided more than $400,000 in scholarships to support

$424,000 Awarded 2020-2022

GCL internships, helping students cover expenses and activities abroad.

”It is so rewarding as an educator to see how the Global Career [Launch] Award changed the lives of my students for the better,” said Assistant Professor Jessica Ciarla, faculty leader for the Denmark cohort, which explored sustainable alternative materials in the fashion industry at the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology.

11 PROGRAMS 10 COUNTRIES 106 STUDENTS

When Texas Longhorn volleyball star Melanie Parra returns home to Mexico and enters a gym, she often finds herself signing autographs and taking photos for 30 minutes before she even hits the court.

This is typical now for the international volleyball sensation from Culiacán, México.

“You know she’s Michael Jordan in Mexico, right?” asked Jerritt Elliott, head coach of the Longhorn volleyball program, a perennial powerhouse that won the NCAA national championship in December 2022.

At the age of 12, Parra was selected to play for her state of Sinaloa in a nationwide tournament. Her meteoric rise continued just one year later when, as a 13-year-old, Parra represented her country on the NCAA under-18 Mexican national team.

“Playing for the national team was like another world,” said Parra, who admitted that she’d never thought it was possible to represent her country at such a young age.

Parra went on to become a member of the senior Mexican National Team, helping them to a fourth-place finish at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games. This quick ascension meant Parra started competing against athletes much older than her—a fact that served as motivation to dedicate herself 100 percent to the sport.

“I thought, ‘I’m so young, and look at what I can accomplish,’ ” Parra said.

She added, “I wanted to keep going and continue representing my country. I’m proud to be Mexican. Carrying the colors of your flag is an amazing experience that not many people get to have, but those who do carry a certain pride for their country.”

She brought that pride to Austin in 2020 after officially deciding to continue her academic and volleyball career at UT Austin. In 2021, she took several classes at Texas Global’s English Language Center, where her enthusiasm charmed instructors and converted classmates into volleyball fans. On the court, she quickly became a favorite, especially among the Latino community.

The affection of fans is evident during games at Gregory Gym, when the sold-out crowds reach new decibel levels anytime Parra checks into a game, creating a unique frenzy that contrasts with the calm, masterful energy she exudes on the court.

“When I substitute her into the game, there’s a completely different roar for her,” Elliott said.

On the court, Parra presents a cool yet confident demeanor that belies both the raucous crowd and the boisterous championship team, which finished the season with an impressive 28-1 record. Her play speaks for itself, but don’t let her composure mislead you: Parra feels and appreciates the love she found in the Longhorn community.

“The fans are honestly incredible. It’s a beautiful environment when you come out onto the court,” Parra said. “With the band and the fans who call your name and shout their support—it’s a beautiful thing.”

Pictured: Global Career Launch Thailand 2021 cohort. Photo courtesy of Hirofumi Tanaka

GL BAL LEADING IN Innovation

Boldness, innovation, and collaboration define the research climate at The University of Texas at Austin. Our faculty engage in scholarly and artistic exploration on every continent, forging transnational partnerships in pursuit of scientific and creative inquiry. State-of-the-art facilities and renowned collections bring together artists, scholars, researchers, and practitioners from across the globe to generate and execute new ideas. Research at UT Austin tackles the world’s toughest challenges, with distinguished faculty working across disciplines in key strategic areas of health and well-being, energy and the environment, and technology and society to elevate lives, advance knowledge, drive entrepreneurship, and propel progress on a global scale.

Photo courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center

International Arts Overview

A stunning breadth and depth of artistic and creative activity spotlights global engagement in every corner of the UT Austin campus, enlivening venues from the university’s museums and public art installations to its libraries, collections, theaters, and production facilities.

The innovative spirit that permeates the Forty Acres is invigorated by the students, scholars, and artists who come from countries all over the world to share their inspiration and vision, broadening our worldviews and creating connections among our communities.

Gabriel García Márquez: The Making of a Global Writer

In 2020, the Harry Ransom Center opened “Gabriel García Márquez: The Making of a Global Writer,” an exhibition featuring materials from the author’s archive, preserved onsite. In 2022, the exhibition traveled to the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, where the Colombian novelist wrote his Nobel Prize-winning work, “Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude).”

Nathalie Joachim’s Fanm d’Ayiti Celebrates Haitian Women

Texas Performing Arts welcomed Haitian composer Nathalie Joachim and the Spektral Quartet to Bates Recital Hall in 2022 to perform Joachim’s Grammy-nominated album, “Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti).” Blending folk songs with soundscapes and chamber strings, the music celebrates Haiti’s iconic female artists and activists who fought for social justice in the world’s first free Black republic.

Svaranjali Indian Classical Music and Javanese Gamelan Ensembles

In 2022, the Butler School of Music presented a stunning double bill, led by virtuoso sitarist and Professor of Ethnomusicology Stephen Slawek. Svaranjali, UT Austin’s performance practice ensemble for Indian classical music, shared the stage with Kyahi Rosowibowo the university’s Javanese gamelan ensemble, whose members rehearse in a campus space created specifically to accommodate its many tuned percussion instruments and metallophones.

Ballet Hispánico’s Noche de Oro: A Celebration of 50 Years

Pre-eminent dance company Ballet Hispánico marked its 50th anniversary season in 2021, presenting “Noche de Oro: A Celebration of 50 Years” at UT Austin’s Bass Concert Hall. Over five decades, the company has presented groundbreaking dance works by renowned Latinx choreographers from Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Venezuela, and many other countries.

Painted Cloth: Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America

The 2022 exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art, “Painted Cloth: Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America,” addressed the social roles of textiles produced in Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela during the 1600s and 1700s, examining civil and religious garments against a woven backdrop of European and Indigenous aesthetic traditions.

HARRY RANSOM CENTER

TEXAS PERFORMING ARTS

TEXAS PERFORMING ARTS

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

BLANTON MUSEUM OF ART

Photo courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center

Photo courtesy of Texas Performing Arts

Photo courtesy of Nathalie Joachim

Photo courtesy of the College of Fine Arts

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

College of Fine Arts Spotlights Brazilian Art and Culture

From 2021 to 2023, the College of Fine Arts demonstrated its dedication to celebrating and studying Brazilian art, history, and culture via numerous creative projects.

In August 2021, art history graduate students met online for a three-day seminar on interpreting Afro-Latin American art and visual culture through anti-racist and decolonial lenses. As part of the seminar, the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) hosted “Critical Intervention: AfroBrazilian and Afro-Caribbean Art and Visual Culture,” led by art history faculty members Eddie Chambers, George Flaherty, and Adele Nelson.

The seminar was funded in part by an initiative of the Vice Provost for

Diversity Office to support community-led diversity and inclusion projects called Actions that Promote Community Transformation. Students heard from numerous guest lecturers, including Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino.

In 2022, University of California Press published a new book by Nelson, a UT Austin art history assistant professor and associate director for CLAVIS. “Forming Abstraction: Art and Institutions in Postwar Brazil” is the first book-length study of its kind. It explores how Brazilian institutions featuring abstract art at the onset of the Cold War served as nuclei for the development and expression of the newly democratic nation’s societal identities.

Nelson’s writings on Latin American art have appeared in several international magazines and academic journals. Her research has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Nelson also collaborated with Visual Arts Center Director MacKenzie Stevens and Assistant Curator María

Emilia Fernández on an exhibition titled “Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil.” The exhibition integrated the work of 10 Brazilian artists in contemplation of Brazil’s long history of oppressive power structures.

“Social Fabric” spanned five galleries, with 69 artworks ranging from installations to paintings, performances, photography, sculptures, and videos. Each work addresses oppression and inequity while highlighting different modes of activism. Public outreach and programming was made possible in part by Texas Global’s Internationalization Event Fund.

The exhibition remains on view at the Visual Arts Center through March 2023, before traveling to the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Photos courtesy of the Visual Arts Center

Pharmaceutical Engineering and 3D Printing Labs Develop Personalized Contraceptive Devices

Scientists at the Pharmaceutical Engineering and 3D Printing Labs (PharmE3D) received a federal grant to create custom birth control devices.

Using a 3D printing technology developed in-house, the PharmE3D team of international researchers are honing the production of personalized alternatives to commercial intrauterine devices (IUDs), which are intrusive and sometimes painful female contraceptives.

The research is being carried out alongside the Contraception Research and Development organization. Funding

from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) allows the team at UT Austin to further develop these alternatives and distribute them on a wider scale, increasing global access to long-term and effective contraception while minimizing some of the device’s most debilitating side effects.

“This USAID grant has the potential to make a significant impact on women’s reproductive health in the developing world,” said Dr. Mohammed Maniruzzaman, assistant professor at the university’s Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery.

McCombs Author Chronicles How Digital Tech Helps Nations Speed Development

Marketing Professor Vijay Mahajan in the McCombs School of Business released “Digital Leapfrogs: How Technology Is Reshaping Consumer Markets in India” in 2022. The book details the way communities leverage digital technologies to overcome tech gaps and help their countries develop more equitably.

Landlines were scarce in rural India where he grew up, says Mahajan, who holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business. If one household got a telephone, neighbors lined up to use it.

Today, however, inexpensive mobile phones are transforming remote villages and farms by connecting them to the world economy, using a very different model from countries like the United States. Mahajan’s hypothesis was that this could be a more practical model for the majority of the world’s consumers, who live in developing countries.

The book—Mahajan’s 14th—used the term “digital leapfrogging” to describe the method by which more accessible

digital technology has helped India and Kenya skip traditional economic development steps such as telephone landlines. Both countries are extending digital development to large rural populations, in effect porting the communities straight from the 19th century into the 21st.

“Every day it becomes all too obvious how critical a role these technological innovations will play in the continued emergence of developing countries and

the 86 percent of global consumers who work, shop, play, live, and dream, like consumers anywhere else in the world,” said Mahajan.

“In my research covering over 150 organizations and markets in developing countries, from their upscale urban neighborhoods to slums and far-flung rural farming regions, I have witnessed the exponential changes brought about by technologies.”

JACKSON SCHOOL OF GEOSCIENCES

Jackson School Researcher Advocates for Global Implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage

With more than 20 years of carbon storage research under its belt, UT Austin’s Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC), part of the Bureau of Economic Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences, is a global leader in reducing carbon dioxide emissions through a method known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The next step is pushing for global implementation of the technology to help protect the environment.

For Katherine Romanak, a research scientist at the Jackson School, attending the 2021 Conference of the Parties (COP26) came with a sense of responsibility. This annual global climate summit brings together representatives of countries from across the world to set goals for reducing climate change.

At COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, Romanak explained the safety and viability of CCS as a climate game changer and invited countries to explore the potential of implementation.

“We are one of the most experienced groups in the world on CCS,” said Romanak. “I see it almost as an obligation, that we have to help countries become aware of this as a possibility.”

Romanak and UT Austin are producing results. The university’s carbon storage scientists have successfully collaborated with colleagues in Trinidad and Tobago to implement CCS and are now working with Nigeria and China.

Romanak also highlighted the momentum CCS is gaining around the world. Canada and Norway have joined the U.S. as leaders, Romanak says. And more countries are making a push, as

Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Indonesia jump on board.

From addressing resistant public perception on the global stage to working in collaboration with developing countries, Romanak says her passion now is to answer as many questions as she can. She is using the experience she has behind her—15 years of research and implementation, to be exact.

“It’s quite an honor to be able to go to these COPs,” said Romanak. “That’s where the fate of the planet is being decided.”

Photo

Photo courtesy of McCombs School of Business

UT Austin, French, and Finnish Researchers Study Coral Reefs Around the World

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, researchers from France, Finland, and UT Austin examined the feeding habits of more than 600 species of marine life on six coral reefs near southern Japan, Hawaii, the West Indies, New Caledonia, Madagascar, and the Marshall Islands.

They found that networks of predator fish and prey on coral reefs around the world are remarkably similar, predators are pickier eaters than previously thought,

and that delicate ecosystems become more vulnerable when specialized “hunter” species face extinction.

The study also found that, despite regional differences, food webs are strikingly similar: 67 percent of species were feeders with specific preferences, regardless of the coral reefs’ tremendous diversity of available food.

UT Alumna

Documents Dangers Transgender Women Face in Latin America

Over the last decade, Moody College graduate and photojournalist Danielle Villasana has traveled through Latin America, following transgender women as they flee violence in their home countries for asylum in the U.S.

As a UT Austin undergrad, Villasana documented the experiences of LGBTQIA+ families in Texas, then received a Helen M. Powell Fellowship to travel to Argentina after the country passed the world’s most progressive

set of gender identity laws. During a subsequent study abroad trip, she explored the lives of trans women in Peru. After graduating with a journalism degree in 2013, she began looking at the factors that pushed women to flee their homes in Central America.

Latin America leads the world in homicides of transgender people, accounting for nearly 80 percent of total deaths in that population. Most trans women don’t live past the age of 35. In Central America, trans women are further threatened by endemic violence from gangs, clients, police, and even family.

In Lima, Peru, Villasana created a photo book, “A Light Inside,” which she distributed to universities and health care centers as a free educational tool for staff. Her latest series, “Abre Camino,” focuses on San Pedro Sula, Honduras, documenting trans women relegated to sex work, enduring sexual assault and other hardships as they prepare to migrate north.

In 2022, Villasana received an Alexia Grant from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School to finish “Abre Camino.” She hopes to reveal what life is like for these women once they make it to the U.S., focusing on the instability, discrimination, and other barriers they face in trying to make a new home for themselves.

Once she finishes her current project, Villasana plans to create a portable guidebook with information, testimonials, and resources for trans women to help them navigate the process of migrating to the U.S.

MOODY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION

Photo courtesy of the College of Natural Sciences

Photos courtesy of Danielle Villasana

Texas Global Offers New and Expanded Funding

Students and faculty who engage in transnational endeavors gain immeasurable insight by exposure to diverse global perspectives, politics, histories, languages, literature, and arts, equipping them to take on pressing challenges and make positive impacts across the globe.

15

$600,000+ AWARDED TO FACULTY MEMBERS IN COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS

2020-2022

As part of its commitment to providing intercultural opportunities for students and supporting internationally oriented activities of faculty members and campus groups, Texas Global annually offers grants to fund research, teaching, internships, publications, events, and related ventures that enrich the university’s academic mission.

During the 2020-2022 academic years, Texas Global expanded its existing grants roster and introduced new global funding opportunities. More than $600,000 has been awarded to 15 colleges and schools whose faculty participated in Global Career Launch, Global Virtual Exchange,

and other programs that support internationally focused research and teaching initiatives. Since 2020, Texas Global has launched several new funding endeavors: Texas Global Faculty Research Seed Grants, the Publication Fund, and the Internationalization Event Fund.

Faculty Research Seed Grants facilitate UT Austin faculty research across all disciplines with new or existing partnerships at higher education institutions and organizations around the world.

The Publication Fund defrays costs for the translation of an original work, including scholarly monographs, novels, poetry anthologies, exhibition catalogues, textbooks, and edited collections. Travel Planning Grants support faculty members working to establish connections abroad to meet eligibility requirements for other Texas Global funding opportunities.

Robin Moore, professor of ethnomusicology at the Butler School of Music, received a Faculty Research Seed Grant in 2021 to collaborate with the University of Guadalajara and in 2022 became an inaugural recipient of the Publication Fund.

“I’m extremely grateful to Texas Global for offering subsidy funding that allowed for the publication of my book in Spanish,” said Moore. “Since my primary focus is Cuban history and culture, I have always known that the primary readership for my work is in Spanish; I now look forward to connecting with new music fans and scholars throughout the hemisphere.”

The Internationalization Event Fund supports academic units sponsoring high-impact, globally oriented events involving multiple colleges and schools to reach diverse audiences. For example, Dell Med’s Value Institute for Health and Care received event funding for its April 2022 Redefining Health Care Summit in Barcelona, Spain.

Photos courtesy of the Value Institute for Health and Care

Pictured: Redefining Health Care Summit participants, Barcelona 2022

Seed Grant Recipient Conducts Transnational Research for Bilingual Dementia Patients

In working to understand and intervene in cognitive aging and dementia among diverse populations, Assistant Professor Stephanie Grasso investigates how bilingualism may influence dementia treatment.

Grasso’s research focuses on bilingual adults with aphasia, which hinders language comprehension and production. Aphasia can be caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, tumor, or neurodegenerative disease and is highly variable, with each individual demonstrating different patterns of difficulty.

Grasso, whose faculty appointment is in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, says expanding the pool of research participants to include bilingual speakers and those from historically marginalized populations can strengthen science’s understanding of speech and language processes while mitigating clinical bias.

“In order for us to actually serve diverse populations, we need to make concerted efforts that are targeting diverse populations as a part of the research

Faculty Research Seed Grants

2020-2022

30 AWARDS 11 COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS

endeavor. It can’t be an afterthought,” Grasso said. “When you examine only one language of a bilingual speaker, you are really not seeing the full picture.”

Grasso received a Texas Global Faculty Research Seed Grant for her research on rehabilitating communication in bilingual patients with dementia. She collaborates with Associate Professor Maya L. Henry at UT Austin and Miguel Ángel SantosSantos, faculty neurologist at Sant Pau Biomedical Research Center in Barcelona, Spain, to investigate the effects of behavioral speech-language intervention for Spanish-Catalan bilingual speakers with primary progressive aphasia.

Speech-language pathologists specializing in this condition work in tandem with other health professionals such as neuropsychologists and neurologists—a collaborative model that fits Grasso’s research.

“Interdisciplinary research is key to making notable scientific discoveries, especially in areas of research that have been historically understudied,” Grasso said.

20 COUNTRIES

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

Faculty Research Seed Grant Recipient Launches New Book Exploring Megaregions

Texas Global Faculty Research Seed Grant recipient and Community and Regional Planning Professor Ming Zhang specializes in transportation planning as the director of the University Transportation Center Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions

The book “Megaregions and America’s Future,” co-authored by Zhang and

consortium partners, aims to encapsulate the center’s work by offering a look at the history of the megaregion—defined as a cluster of metropolitan areas. The book offers a menu of policy options for taking advantage of the shared economies, natural resource systems, and infrastructure of megaregions to address the challenges facing urban planners and government decision makers.

of Architecture

Photo courtesy of Moody College of Communication

Photo courtesy of the School

UT Austin Researchers Work with NASA to View Oldest Galaxies via James Webb Telescope

Two images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have shown what may be among the earliest galaxies ever observed, featuring objects from more than 13 billion years ago.

The images represent some of the first from a collaboration of astronomers and academic researchers—including the Department of Astronomy and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin—who are teaming with NASA and global partners to uncover new insights about the universe.

Associate Professor of Astronomy

Steven Finkelstein is principal investigator for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey from which these images were taken. The CEERS Collaboration is composed of 18 co-investigators from 12 institutions and more than 100 collaborators from the U.S. and nine other countries.

Micaela Bagley, a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin and one of

the CEERS imaging leads, led a group processing the images so the data could be analyzed by the whole team.

Researchers used supercomputers at TACC for the initial image processing: Stampede2 was used to remove background noise and artifacts, and Frontera, the world’s most powerful supercomputer at a U.S. university, was used to stitch together the images to form a single mosaic.

“High-performance computing power made it possible to combine myriad images and hold the frames in memory

at once for processing, resulting in a single beautiful image,” Finkelstein said.

Webb’s primary mirror is about 7 meters in diameter, dwarfing any other telescope in space and most on the ground. Webb is 10 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing it to pull in fainter galaxies from all epochs of cosmic time—from here to almost infinity.

“It’s amazing to see a point of light from Hubble turn into a whole, beautifully shaped galaxy in these new James Webb images, and other galaxies just pop up out of nowhere,” Finkelstein said.

Professor Examines Information, Culture, Sovereignty of Indigenous Nations in U.S. Borders

In early 2022, Distinguished Service Professor Loriene Roy in the School of Information began fielding questions from high school students about issues of sovereignty. “They’d likely heard about sovereignty in terms of the war—that Ukraine was fighting for their sovereignty,” she said. But long before current geopolitics revitalized public interest, the issue was a familiar one for her.

Roy is Anishinabe and a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe—although,

she clarified, “The tendency is to say ‘nation’ instead of ‘tribe.’ ” In numerous speaking engagements around the world, she has found herself explaining the status of sovereign Indigenous nations and their citizens within the U.S.

“The 574 federally recognized tribal nations within the borders of the United States are also sovereign nations,” said Roy. “Many people who are members of those nations introduce themselves as citizens: dual citizens of the United States of America and whatever tribal nation we belong to.”

Much of Roy’s 35-year career in information science and education has centered around seeking ways for library and literacy services to advance Indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage. Her students have contributed to service initiatives that include creating

LibGuides (online research guides) for libraries at some of the more than 30 tribal colleges.

After serving as the president of the American Indian Library Association and the first American Indian president of the American Library Association, Roy is currently writing a book featuring the biographies of five Native women.

Advocacy and mentorship are primary facets of Roy’s work. She is always seeking opportunities for connection as she advocates for Indigenous people’s access to information around the world. As she said, “Anybody’s background counts in information studies.

COCKRELL SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Cockrell’s Water-Collecting Gel Film Stands to Help Hydrate a Thirsty Globe

More than a third of the world’s population resides in areas that experience significant water shortages. That’s why scientists and engineers from UT Austin developed a solution that could help people in such areas access clean drinking water.

Their solution is a low-cost gel film created from abundant materials that can pull water from the air in even the driest climates.

This development is also financially sustainable. The materials that facilitate this reaction cost a mere $2 per kilogram, and a single kilogram can produce more than 6 liters of water per day in areas with less than 15 percent relative humidity—and as much as 13 liters daily in areas with up to 30 percent relative humidity.

While this research builds on previous breakthroughs, such as the ability to pull water out of the atmosphere and the application of that technology to create self-watering soil, these technologies were designed for relatively highhumidity environments.

“This new work is about practical solutions that people can use to get water in the hottest, driest places on

Earth,” said Guihua Yu, professor of materials science and mechanical engineering in the Cockrell School.

“This is not something you need an advanced degree to use,” said Youhong “Nancy” Guo, the lead author on the

“This could allow millions of people without consistent access to drinking water to have simple, water-generating devices at home that they can easily operate.”

Other attempts at pulling water from desert air are typically energy-intensive and produce inadequate volumes. And although 6 liters might not sound like much, researchers in Yu’s lab say that creating thicker films or absorbent beds or arrays with optimization could drastically increase the amount of water they yield.

Plus, the researchers say the reaction itself is a simple one, reducing the challenges of scaling it for mass usage.

paper and a former doctoral student in Yu’s lab, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s straightforward enough that anyone can make it at home if they have the materials.”

The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the U.S. Department of Defense, for which maximizing drinking water for soldiers in arid climates is an important objective of the project. However, the researchers also envision this ultimately as a product that people could someday buy at a hardware store to use in their homes, thanks to its simplicity.

Photo courtesy of Cockrell School of Engineering

Photo by Della Nohl

Photo by Della Nohl

Photo courtesy of the School of Information

LBJ School Research Professor Releases Climate Change Documentary

A documentary film from Research Professor Raj Patel in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT Austin tells the story of a Malawian farmer and activist trying to save her home from extreme weather caused by climate change.

A decade in the making from Patel’s first visit to Malawi in 2012, “The Ants and the Grasshopper” follows Anita Chitaya in her effort to convince Americans that climate change is real and already happening. This crusade takes her from Malawi to Oakland to Washington, D.C., traveling through rural-urban divisions as well as schisms of race, class, and gender to speak with farmers, climate skeptics, and policymakers.

”This documentary was launched from the recognition that to defeat climate change, we’ll need big, transformative change,” Patel said. “We asked whether such change was possible, and what it’d look like. We found answers to both those questions. More than that, we were changed in the making of this film.”

Described by “The New Yorker” as “charming, infuriating” and “big-hearted,” the documentary received wide praise. The film premiered in May 2022 in Telluride at the Mountain Film Festival, where Patel also received the 2021 Moving Mountains Award honoring films that focus on social justice and impact.

GL BAL UNITED IN Service

To change the world, we must reach the world. The core mission of The University of Texas at Austin is to serve the community and improve lives in Austin, throughout Texas, around the nation, and across the globe. From our first-year students to more than half a million alumni living and working in 176 countries, Longhorns from all cultures and backgrounds make a difference in the world every day. Our faculty and staff create opportunities for international collaboration, fostering meaningful dialogue, cultural exchange, and service-learning options for our students, who leave the university as globally minded citizens and committed Longhorns for life.

Photo courtesy of Steve Hicks School of Social Work

UT Austin Joins Alliance to Support Threatened and Displaced Scholars

In November 2021, The University of Texas at Austin proudly announced its partnership with the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) to support threatened scholars from areas in crisis around the world. A year later, in November 2022, the university welcomed its first IIE-SRF scholar, who came from the Middle East Gulf region to work with faculty in the Cockrell School of Engineering.

The IIE-SRF is the only global program that arranges and funds fellowships for imperiled and displaced scholars at partnering higher education institutions worldwide. With this alliance, UT Austin committed to matching funds from IIESRF and joined a network of universities spanning nearly 30 countries to provide

safe refuge and academic opportunities for threatened scholars.

“I am delighted that The University of Texas at Austin has joined the Scholar Rescue Fund Alliance,” said Sonia Feigenbaum, senior vice provost for global engagement and chief international officer at Texas Global. “We proudly pledge our support for institutionalizing this extraordinary initiative by engaging Texas Global with our 18 colleges and schools to welcome IIE-SRF fellows to the Forty Acres.”

Texas Global’s objectives include fostering strategic partnerships on campus and abroad, and supporting a diverse community of international students and scholars. Both are

embodied in the university’s commitment to the IIE-SRF program, offering the UT Austin campus as a safe haven from which threatened scholars can continue their research and pursue new opportunities.

“In many contexts across the globe, our colleagues face threats to their lives and careers,” said Allan Goodman, CEO of the Institute of International Education. “Though academics have always been persecuted for their scholarly work and are among the first to be targeted during conflict and instability, the magnitude of the current crisis is unprecedented in IIE’s history. We are extremely grateful to Texas Global and UT Austin for taking this concrete step to support scholars in need.”

The Scholar Rescue Fund Alliance launched in August 2020, expanding the efforts of IIE-SRF and its partners to assist threatened and displaced scholars globally. The alliance builds upon IIE’s 100 years of providing resources and support to vulnerable professors and university students, including those impacted by Nazism and Fascism, apartheid in South Africa, and today, ongoing crises in multiple countries and regions.

Photos courtesy of the Institute of International Education

AMPATH Delivers Valuable Health Care Experiences in

Kenya and Mexico

Maliha Khan knew she wanted to pursue medicine at just 5 years old, long before she arrived in Kenya to complete a final global health rotation prior to graduating from UT Austin.

Khan grew up in North Carolina, witnessing her father’s pediatric practice. But when she was a teenager, her father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away shortly afterward. She recalls experiencing a completely different side of the health care system— medical errors, patient safety and quality concerns—that made her question her future in medicine.

Khan understood then which aspects of the system need fixing, such as physician burnout rates. As she searched for medical schools to attend, she noted Dell Medical School’s apparent readiness to address these shortcomings head-on.

“Dell Med’s mission is to revolutionize health, and they want to produce students that understand health goes beyond pathophysiologic factors,” said Khan.

Dell Med also afforded Khan a transformative global health experience with the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) program, a bilateral exchange providing medical students and residents with practical, hands-on experience at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya.

AMPATH’s history dates to a partnership struck by Indiana University and Moi University in 1990. After decades of fruitful collaboration, the partnership expanded into the AMPATH Consortium, a global network of 14 universities coordinating a medical trainee exchange program. UT Austin joined in 2018.

“One thing I appreciated with AMPATH is that it was established in 1990, and we could really see the impact of sustained global health across 30 years,” said Khan. In 2022, Dell Med and Texas Global brought the consortium together with

UT Austin’s longtime allies in Mexico: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) and the State of Puebla Ministry of Health. The partners launched the AMPATH México program to address shared challenges, expand research infrastructure, and promote health care access for vulnerable communities in Texas and Mexico.

AMPATH México aims to replicate the Kenyan program’s health care delivery, training, and research collaborations. The AMPATH model is also being replicated in Ghana. Such expansions encourage Khan, who says she benefited as much from AMPATH’s atmosphere of cultural humility and peer collaboration as from its interactive learning models.

“Coming back from Kenya and having that experience really shifted the way that I will see and practice medicine,” said Khan. “I learned how to have a sustainable career in global health.”

Alumna Alejandra Ávila Selected for Clerkship with Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Before she landed a judicial law clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2022 or graduated from Texas Law in 2014, Alejandra “Ale” Ávila immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico when she was just a teenager.

After graduating from high school as an English language learner in Laredo, Texas, Ávila graduated first in her class from Texas A&M International University’s Honors Program and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She attributes her interest in law to her family’s experience navigating life as new residents.

“My direct interaction with the immigration system and my experiences as a public high school student and graduate of a Hispanicserving institution in South Texas were tremendous influences in my decision to go to law school,” said Ávila, the first in her family to pursue post-secondary education in the U.S.

At Texas Law, Ávila participated in the law school’s Immigration Clinic and Transnational Worker Rights Clinic. She was the national representative for the Chicano Hispanic Law Students

Association and the president of the Human Rights Law Society.

Ávila interned at the White House, U.S. Department of Justice, Supreme Court of Texas, and Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica as the Rapoport Center’s first recipient of the Charles Moyer Human Rights Fellowship.

She clerked for Chief Judge Mary Murguia of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and Judge Micaela Alvarez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Then, in February 2022, Ávila became the 39th Texas Law graduate (since 1938) to land a judicial law clerkship on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the first-ever Texas Ex selected to clerk for Justice Sotomayor.

“It will be the honor of my life to clerk for Justice Sotomayor. I am deeply grateful for the support of my professors, classmates, family, and friends, and for the invaluable mentorship and encouragement I received from Chief Judge Murguia and Judge Alvarez,” Ávila said.

TEXAS LAW

Photos courtesy of the Division of Global Health at Dell Medical School

Photo courtesy of Texas Law

Iimura Peace Scholarship Enables Triple-Major Student

Alumna Siqi Li is the 2020 recipient of a scholarship aimed at helping international students attain their academic goals. Without it, she said, she might never have completed college.

Born in a Chinese village along the border with Myanmar, Li is a member of one of China’s minority ethnic groups, the Bai people. Li transferred to UT Austin in 2020 to triple-major in communication science, economics, and statistical modeling. Her classes totaled 29 credit hours per semester, more than double the requirement for full-time students.

In February 2022, Li lost financial support due to the death of a parent during COVID-19, raising the possible necessity of returning to China and ceasing her studies. But the Iimura Peace Endowed Scholarship allowed her to remain and finish her undergraduate degree.

“This scholarship was not only money for me, but also the hope of my academic career,” Li said.

The scholarship was endowed in 2018 by Japanese alumnus Shinichi “Joe” Iimura (B.S. ‘74, civil engineering and B.A. ‘77, computer sciences). The goal of the scholarship is to help Asian students focus on their studies without financial stress and to promote peace in Asia.

Li said the scholarship offered a light during her darkest time. It not only enabled her to graduate but also helped her afford her graduate school application fees. She is now a first-year Ph.D. student in communications at UCLA.

“The only thing I wish to do now,” Li said, “is to engage more in the topics that I am interested in [regarding] political communications and to produce more meaningful papers.”

Alumna Adriana Pacheco Advocates for Scholars, Students, Readers, Writers

When Adriana Pacheco (Ph.D. ‘15) first visited the LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, she cried. Pacheco encountered the library when she came to UT Austin from Puebla, Mexico, to earn her doctorate in Iberian and Latin American languages and culture, and she was stunned by its depth and volume of materials.

“In that moment, I became international,” she said. “I thought, international education is my path now.”

Pacheco made good on her pronouncement, becoming an affiliate research fellow at LLILAS Benson as well as a tireless connector for cooperative research and academic networking across borders. She joined the Mexico National Research System and co-founded the 19th-century section of the Latin American Studies Association. In 2018, she created the popular “Hablemos Escritoras (Let’s Talk Writers),” the first international podcast and encyclopedia featuring women writing in Spanish.

As a current member and former chair of the Board of Advisors, she champions connections between UT Austin and Mexico, working to foster partnerships that support research and scholarship, educational and professional opportunity, community health, bilingual literature, and many other disciplines.

She is a co-creator of the scholarly exchange program between Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) and the University of Bergen, and member of the inaugural board of the Visiting Fellowship agreement between UDLAP and the University of Cambridge, England. She was instrumental in the formation of the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare program in Mexico, a collaboration between Dell Medical School and the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla.

“I really think that knowledge is the only way we can become better—serious knowledge, academic knowledge, with people that go deep in research,” Pacheco said.

Egyptian Geologist and Alumna Returns to Forty Acres as Fulbright Scholar

Cockrell Engineers Address International Humanitarian Challenges with Red Cross

UT Austin is partnering with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to solve challenges in humanitarian response with engineering innovations.

Professor Janet Ellzey heads the Humanitarian Engineering Program in the Cockrell School of Engineering, which offers Humanitarian Product Development (HPD), a course series that spans two semesters and is open to students from engineering, design, social work, and other disciplines in the humanities.

Guided by IFRC senior officers, interdisciplinary teams of HPD students learn the principles of design, project management, and product development through researching, experimenting, and creating prototypes that address the needs of people in underserved communities.

HPD students have worked on products for use in refugee camps: solar-powered lighting, a menstrual pad fabricator, and a biodigester that converts latrine waste into fertilizer.

“Our goal goes beyond just making disposable menstrual pads,” social work major Kathryn Taylor said. “We hope to bring more light back to what menstruation is in people’s lives and how

it affects populations that have been displaced because of a humanitarian crisis.”

Seeds for the partnership were planted when William Carter, a Texas Ex working in water and sanitation for the IFRC, learned about Projects with Underserved Communities (PUC), which Ellzey started with James O’Connor from the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering. The program is a collaboration between Texas Global, the Cockrell School, and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work.

Ellzey envisions the IFRC partnership as a mutual experience in which student engineers can learn directly from experts in humanitarian response while contributing their technical skills. In return, IFRC obtains creative solutions for technical challenges from one of the top engineering schools in the nation to help them better serve areas in need.

“… [W]orking with marginalized communities, one of the most common criticisms is that the people doing the design work lack awareness of the situation on the ground,” Ellzey said. “This partnership provides us with onthe-ground knowledge, experience, and information.”

When Egyptian geologist Walaa Awaad Awaad Ali (M.A. ‘09) left her home in Alexandria for UT Austin in 2006, she believed that by experiencing the world, she could help change it. Fifteen years later, after earning a master’s degree from the Jackson School of Geosciences, a doctoral degree in marine geology from Suez Canal University, and distinguished positions in petroleum geology, her journey came full circle in 2021 after returning to the Forty Acres as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar.

Ali began her first semester at the Jackson School while refining her language skills in Texas Global’s English Language Center (ELC). She says the ELC’s Academic English Program helped her prepare for a career in academia and make lifelong connections with peers from around the world.

“Studying English as a foreign language not only improved my communication and memory skills, but it also increased my cultural knowledge and allowed me to communicate efficiently with professors in the university and learn how to write a scientific report,” said Ali.

Feeling a significant patriotic responsibility, Ali returned to Egypt while her country went through the historic Arab Spring in 2011. She instructed part time at Alexandria University and then completed her Ph.D. in 2016. Subsequently, she lectured on reservoir sedimentology and petroleum geology as an assistant professor at Matrouh University.

Ali’s Fulbright proposal, comparing unconventional shale reservoirs in Egypt and Texas, garnered her a 2021 Fulbright Visiting Scholar grant and brought her back to conduct research at the Jackson School’s Bureau of Economic Geology.

Ali says her experiences at the ELC and UT Austin have greatly influenced her life and career trajectory, and she encourages other international students and scholars to take advantage of the resources offered by UT Austin, such as financial aid for international students and English instruction.

JACKSON SCHOOL OF GEOSCIENCES TEXAS GLOBAL

COCKRELL SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING STEVE HICKS SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK TEXAS GLOBAL

Photos courtesy of Walaa Awaad Awaad Ali

Photos courtesy of Cockrell School of Engineering

STUDENTS HAVE VOLUNTEERED FOR PROJECTS WITH UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES (2009-2022)

connected to his Polish heritage. Growing up, he was enthralled by stories of his mom’s childhood in Gliwice, Poland, and how her father risked his life to fight the tyranny of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Silverstein said Poland overflows with heroes—from Witold Pilecki, a resistance leader who intentionally got captured by the Nazis to document Auschwitz’s horrific conditions, to Marek Edelman, who helped lead the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“You can look back pretty much since the beginning of Polish history and find someone to admire,” said Silverstein, a junior government major. “Of course, there are also a lot of living heroes today.”

Inspired by such luminaries, Silverstein started UT Austin’s Polish Club in 2021 for students to celebrate Polish culture and history. Despite being so new, the Polish Club quickly became a leading Slavic-speaking organization on campus,

former Polish presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski and Bronislaw Komorowski.

In May 2022, the Polish Club hosted another hero when, with the help of Texas Global’s Internationalization Event Fund, they welcomed Nobel Peace Prize

president of Poland Lech Walesa for a special lecture on the global impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Walesa was a leader of the 1980s Solidarity movement against communist rule in Poland. He served as Poland’s

first president elected by popular vote and worked to transition the country to a capitalist liberal democracy. Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his efforts to bring freedom to the nation and end the Cold War.

Silverstein said considering UT Austin’s legacy, it was almost inevitable that the university would host President Walesa. He added, “I’m just lucky I was part of that process and able to help make that happen.”

Walesa’s speech emphasized the power of individuals to oppose expansionism and oppression, said Silverstein. Like Walesa, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy rose from humble origins to defend his country on a global stage.

“Just a couple of years ago, he was an actor,” Silverstein said of Zelenskyy, “and now he’s the man fighting for freedom across the world.”

Photos courtesy of the UT Polish Club

Pictured: Nathan Silverstein and Lech Walesa

Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Leads Campus Response to War on Ukraine

As the Russian Federation’s ongoing military invasion of Ukraine sent shock waves around the world, it also struck a deeply personal chord for many students, staff, and faculty at UT Austin. This is what drove Professor Mary Neuburger, director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), to organize support and relocation efforts for affected scholars and their families.

Established in 1984, CREEES now includes more than 80 faculty members from more than 20 different departments and administrative units across campus, offering educational and research opportunities focused on the languages, cultures, histories, and politics of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian regions.

By the end of April 2022, with assistance from Texas Global and numerous units across campus, Neuburger and CREEES secured eight paid, yearlong faculty positions for Ukrainian scholars displaced by the war.

seven Ukrainian scholars to campus in Summer and Fall 2022, with a final scholar slated to join them in January 2023.

“I feel so blessed to have this time with the Ukrainian scholars,” said Neuburger. “They’re bringing so much to the table.”

As new members of the Longhorn community, the scholars began teaching, conducting research in labs, or working on individual research projects. Some went to the Global Disinformation Lab to study Russian disinformation on the war. Another assisted in teaching Ukrainian language courses to meet an increase in student demand, while a robotics engineer and professor made an immediate impact on the Texas Robotics lab.

to promote the study and greater understanding of Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

For Neuburger, this shared experience with the Ukrainian scholars provides another layer of knowledge that she would not have gained otherwise. As a professor who teaches about the region and conflict, she explained that it’s difficult but necessary to tap into the human element of a story when teaching about historical and contemporary events such as this one.

“It’s really important in the humanities to do that,” Neuburger said. “We’re not just talking about numbers of people or policy in this cold way. We’re capturing the human story of what this means for actual people who are impacted by it.”

STEVE HICKS SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

“Nothing we can do will stop this tragedy or alleviate the suffering in Ukraine, but we hope we can make a difference,” she wrote in the College of Liberal Arts’ “Life & Letters” publication.

The relocation process included securing near-campus housing, registering children at local schools, working through visa and immigration processes, and managing transportation logistics. With those requirements satisfied, CREEES happily welcomed

CREEES subsequently secured $2 million from the U.S. Department of Education via two Title VI grants, offered to institutions that work in regional or international studies and world languages. Neuburger explained that at least half the funds were allotted for student scholarships attached to language studies.

A portion of the grants can also cover professional development and scholarly and community events, which could fund a scholar’s research assistant or travel to a conference. Besides funding research, teaching, and outreach, these grants serve as a tool that allows CREEES

Social Work

Student Serves Refugee Youth in South Africa

Committed to working toward systemic change in society, social work graduate student Dominique McGaha traveled to South Africa in 2022. She worked with the Adonis Musati Project just outside of Cape Town, which steps in to “encourage, equip, empower” refugees and asylum seekers in the gaps where government provides no help.

McGaha conducted counseling sessions, which allowed her to support people in their most vulnerable moments. Her equally rewarding engagement with young people in a youth program helped her understand their perspectives and offer education and empowerment in return.

McGaha’s first time overseas was a semester in Hong Kong, where she was part of a minority population. The experience influenced her later choice of Cape Town, as she wanted to experience being among the majority population.

As a Black woman, McGaha said, she knows the importance of representation and wants to lead by example to empower other women and children of color to succeed. As a social worker, she intends to act as an agent of change.

“We can’t just continue to put Band-Aids on problems and expect them to not continue to get bigger,” McGaha said.

Photos courtesy of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Mother, Professor, Economist,

Diplomat: Longhorn Alumna María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad

Long before María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad served as Mexico’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, co-authored a book with a Nobel Prize recipient, and cemented her reputation as a global economist, she departed from Mexico and relocated to Austin alongside her husband. The two had the same goal in mind: to pursue a Ph.D. in economics at UT Austin.

With a bachelor’s degree from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and a master’s from Vanderbilt University, Dieck-Assad was fully aware of the passion she felt for economics.

This realization resulted in an accomplished career that includes a slew of accolades: receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Belgium for her diplomatic work as an ambassador and chief of the Mexican Mission to the European Union; becoming the dean emeritus of the EGADE Business School of Tec de Monterrey; and serving on the Advisory Council for the Governor of the State of Nuevo León in Mexico, to name a few.

Aside from “her kids”—meaning not only her three children but also her students—Dieck-Assad says she is proudest of her collaboration with Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson on the books “Macroeconomía con aplicaciones a México (Macroeconomics with Applications in Mexico)” and “Macroeconomía con aplicaciones a Latinoamerica (Macroeconomics with Applications in Latin America).”

As a highly accomplished Texas Ex, Dieck-Assad parts with a message: With a great education comes great responsibility.

SCHOOL OF NURSING

School of Nursing Faculty Created Connections with Hospital in Kenya

School of Nursing faculty members

Janice Hernandez, Davika Reid, and Julie Zuñiga traveled to Kenya in 2020 for the second annual Kenya Clinical Nurse Education Conference. When the conference was canceled due to COVID restrictions, the visiting educators were invited to connect with nurses at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, where they gave lectures and engaged in discussions with hospital staff.

The Nursing School’s relationship with the Moi Hospital was initiated by the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) a partnership between Moi University, Moi Hospital, North American universities including UT Austin, and the Kenyan government. Travel to Kenya was made possible by a President’s Award for Global Learning secured by the School of Nursing proposal, “Using Interprofessional Education to Improve Community Health in Kenya.”

Reid spoke about the ways nurse residency programs can help new graduates transition to the clinical setting. Hernandez led a 5-hour discussion with 25 nurse leaders and staff members on topics of nursing education, practice, and processes related to enhancing safety, effectiveness, and efficiency.

“The work the Eldoret nursing leaders and staff provide daily with very few resources is astonishing,” Hernandez said. “We were extremely fortunate to be allowed to share our nursing knowledge and expertise and can’t wait to go back.”

Although plans to return to Kenya have not materialized, the team has since sustained those relationships and cooperation with the staff in Eldoret by convening weekly online meetings.

“We continue to partner with our colleagues in Kenya and will be testing a pediatric assessment tool in the

emergency room,” said Zuñiga. “We have also submitted a manuscript for publication and are waiting to hear back about that.”

As the facilitator of the Leadership in Diverse Settings Capstone practicum course, Hernandez is helping to maintain the collaboration between UT Austin graduate students and staff at Moi Hospital, where participants are designing and implementing projects to improve patient care, educate staff and patients, and improve effectiveness of health care delivery.

Acknowledgments

We express our sincerest gratitude to the numerous faculty and staff members across the university who contributed to this Global Engagement Report. Communicators in every college, school, and unit deliver stories that demonstrate UT Austin’s achievements and impact to audiences around the world every day. This report offers a glimpse into the depth and breadth of the university’s global engagement efforts and would not be possible without the assistance of the following people:

Shahreen Abedin

Marc Airhart

Sophia Aitken

Teri Albrecht

Sahar Ali

Sneha Balakrishnan

Alex Briseño

Steve Brooks

Keisha Brown

Anton Caputo

Lizzie Chen

Claire Closmann

John Daigre

Alicia Dietrich

Natalie England

Sonia Feigenbaum

Caren George

Paul Hanaphy

Alexa Haverlah

Mary Huber

Stephanie Hudnall

Kayla Johnson

Monica Kortsha

Nat Levy

Darcy McGillicuddy

Kathleen Mabley

TEXAS GLOBAL

Amy Mirran

Annalise Nakoneczny

Nick Nobel

Shannon Oelrich

Dan Oppenheimer

Constantino Panagopulos

Joshua Powell

Esther Robards-Forbes

Christopher Roberts

Sharmila Rudrappa

Wendy Schneider

Agnes Sekowski

Ciara Shay

Alyssa Shokri

Bia Silva

Jeremy Simon

Christine Sinatra

Ellen Stader

Kerry Steinhofer

Mackenzie Stevens

Kelsey Stine

Jenan Taha

Leora Visotzky

Victoria Yu

Madison Zialu

Texas Global advances UT Austin’s academic mission by leading, supporting, and coordinating the university’s international engagement efforts, fostering strategic partnerships on campus and abroad, supporting a community of impressive international students and scholars, and creating opportunities for students, faculty, and alumni to engage with peers and institutions around the world.

Pictured: Costa Rica. Photo by Maren Gaszak