FIU’s Office of Global Learning (GL) has awarded its first three Student Global Learning Fellowships.
The GL Fellowship program started in 2013 to fund research collaborations between faculty or staff and undergraduate students. The program was originally designed to give faculty the opportunity and seed funding to involve students in globally focused research, the results of which could be used in the classroom.
For six consecutive years, global learning faculty and students were able to examine and begin to solve big problems such as climate change in marine protected areas in the Mexican Caribbean Coral Reef System and the effects of globalization in indigenous territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Now, the fellowship has turned its attention toward its students and will provide undergraduate students with the support needed to conduct research and innovative projects that increase students’ global awareness, global perspectives and global engagement. It consists of two different tracks—research and the engagement/action – and seeks to foster collaboration between students and faculty or staff.
“By funding student-driven projects, we are enabling the next generation of changemakers to bring innovative, creative, pioneering ways of tackling today’s most pressing challenges,” said Hillary Landorf, executive director of the Office of Global Learning Initiatives. “Our faculty continue to play a critical role in this process by providing mentorship to both research and engagement projects—and the students take the driver’s seat both in the creation and implementation of their vision.”
From analyzing racial discourse in Miami and investigating economic development and immigration in border cities to changing the lives of farmers in India, the fellows are demonstrating their commitment to making a long-lasting impact in communities near and far.
This year’s Global Learning Student Fellowship recipients were:
- Yashaswi Tapadia, Arquimides Perez-Leyva and Katelyn Friesen, who will be working revolutionize farming in India through hydroponic greenhouses
- Ashley Weathers, who will be assesing education, health care, cultural integration and trade to analyze the complex nature of development within border cities
- Alexandra Ruiz Alvarado, who will map racial discourse within family structures centered in local Miami neighborhoods
