Session Description

The pandemic didn’t stop undergraduate students in engineering, health and exercise science, and neuroscience from gaining hands-on experiences in adaptive healthcare in August 2021. This session highlights how this 10-day summer “Prosthetic Innovation in Ecuador” program pivoted in unprecedented times in order to be able to continue serving busy student schedules, provide elective credits, and, most importantly, give students the opportunity to help build and fit prosthetics for clients without access to these services in a developing country.

Since 2018, CSU’s School of Biomedical Engineering has worked with the Range of Motion Project (ROMP) to deliver high-quality prosthetic care to underserved populations in Quito, Ecuador. Engineering students typically have little room to spend a semester studying abroad, but many want to experience other cultures and gain hands-on experience. This program provides for this and has also helped increase the number of engineering students studying abroad, ignited interest in global engineering, and inspired capstone senior design projects.

Presenter Bios

Brett Eppich Beal, Undergraduate Programs Manager, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University

Brett Eppich Beal is manager of undergraduate programs in the School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) at Colorado State University. She has been at CSU for over 30 years and with SBME for more than a decade. She is a Denver native, received her bachelor’s degree in British/American literature from Scripps College and her master’s degree in career counseling from CSU. Her professional experience includes university admissions, alumni relations, career advising, and employer relations. She loves working with students, helping them navigate university systems and mentoring their academic and professional growth. She studied abroad in Spain, lived in Greece, and has travelled to about 20 other countries.

Kevin Lear, Professor of Biomedical, Electrical, and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University

Kevin Lear is a professor of biomedical/electrical/computer engineering at Colorado State University. A Colorado native, Kevin earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado-Boulder and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University. He worked in industry prior to coming to Colorado State University. His most current work is in photonic biosensors, components, and systems for high speed optical communication and biophysical models for neurons and computational neuroscience. He served as the director of the undergraduate program in biomedical engineering at CSU from its inception in 2010 until 2019.

Debra Misuraca, Undergraduate Academic Advisor, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University

Debra (Deb) Misuraca is a part-time undergraduate academic advisor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Colorado State University. Deb served as co-developer and co-leader of the Prosthetic Innovation in Ecuador study abroad experience (SU18/19). She is originally from St. Louis, Missouri and attended the University of Missouri-Columbia where she studied communications and minored in English as an undergraduate. Deb began her professional career in higher education at Saint Louis University in 2006. During her time at SLU, she received master’s degrees in both higher education and counseling, and developed and led alternative spring break/service learning programming for undergraduate students. Observing CSU students create and deliver prosthetic devices directly to clients in Ecuador has been one of the most impactful and memorable experiences of her life.

Session Description

The Poverty Action Center within the Regional Economic Development Institute (PAC@REDI) at CSU utilizes interdisciplinary mixed-methods to guide poverty action locally and globally. We will discuss our data analyses to answer questions at the forefront of applied economics globally:
• Our Nepal team is examining links between migration and social mobility through the lens of caste/ethnicity and wealth accumulation using micro-data from the World Bank. This research contributes to understanding whether international migration allows marginalized groups to bypass labor market discrimination at home to advance economically.
• Our Haiti team is studying the effects of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) on measures of women’s empowerment (e.g., economic independence and decision-making) to link to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals of clean water and sanitation, health and well-being, and gender equality.
• Our Ethiopia team is examining how water infrastructure and access in Ethiopia influences individual time use differences by gender.
Please visit https://redi.colostate.edu/poverty-action-center/ for more information.

Presenter Bios

Alexandra Bernasek, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

Alexandra Bernasek is a professor of economics and research associate at the Poverty Action Center at Colorado State University. She has written on self-employment, health insurance and employment transitions, household financial decision-making, pension investments, risk aversion, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and women’s informal sector work and maternity leave in developing countries.

Niroj Bhattarai, Assistant Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

Niroj Bhattarai is an assistant professor of economics and research associate at the Poverty Action Center at Colorado State University. His research is in the field of education and its role in development. In partnership with Rotary, he built gender-specific toilets in a village in Nepal and documented increases in enrollment and attendance, particularly for girls. His current work studies the effects of COVID-19 on educational outcomes of non-traditional students in Northern Colorado.

Anita Alves Pena, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

Anita Alves Pena is a professor of economics and research associate at the Poverty Action Center at Colorado State University. Her research interests are broadly in public sector economics, labor economics, and economic development, and her current research relates to undocumented and documented immigration, public policy, poverty, education/skill, occupational health, and agricultural labor markets.

Ray Miller, Assistant Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

Ray Miller is an assistant professor of economics. His research investigates the determinants and consequences of health disparities and social inequality. His research interests include the lasting impact of early health disparities, health and education policy, caregiving, and the inequality of health and economic well-being among older populations.

Wisnu Setiadi Nugroho, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, Colorado State University

Wisnu Setiadi Nugroho is a Ph.D. candidate in economics and a PAC@REDI graduate student. His research relates to impact evaluation of poverty alleviation programs, poor households’ economic behavior, and household and firm behavior related to taxation. He is familiar with managing field studies and cleaning household surveys. He was previously a research associate with the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction, Office of the Vice President, Republic of Indonesia. He is also an inactive researcher and lecturer at Gadjah Mada University,Indonesia.

Ashish Sedai, Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, Colorado State University

Ashish Sedai is a Ph.D. candidate in economics and a PAC@REDI graduate student. His current research interests are on the linkages between informal finance, wealth distribution, women empowerment, and community support. He completed his master’s in philosophy (economics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and previously was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Delhi, India. He has also worked as consultant/research associate specializing in applied research for the World Bank, the United Nations ESCAP and ESCWA, JPAL-MIT, 2M Research, GTAP-Purdue University, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, India.

Lackson D. Mudenda, Ph.D. Student in Economics, Colorado State University

Lackson D. Mudenda is a Ph.D. student in economics and a PAC@REDI graduate student. His fields of interest are public, international, and development economics. Specifically, he is interested in research related to inequality, poverty, and development in developing countries. He hopes to bring data analytic skills obtained over the years into his research, including his wealth of taxation experience serving as a tax inspector at the Zambia Revenue Authority. He has recently been enjoying teaching undergraduate econometrics in the Department of Economics at Colorado State University.

Brendan Brundage, Ph.D. Student in Economics, Colorado State University

Brendan Brundage is a Ph.D. student in economics and a PAC@REDI graduate student. He is interested in international political economy, income distribution, economic development, and the history of economic thought. His current research involves the relationship between WASH and women empowerment, and conditional factors leading to GDP convergence.

Prasiddha Shakya, Ph.D. Student in Economics, Colorado State University

Prasiddha Shakya (Sid) is an economics Ph.D. student from Nepal interested in sustainable economic development, time-series econometrics, and the economics of health and education. He previous internship/work experiences include working for Teach for America-NYC, UN Foundations, and the TRIO Upward-Bound Program.

Arisa Thongngam and Ann Nguyen, Undergraduate Student Interns for PAC@REDI, Colorado State University

Arisa Thongngam and Ann Nguyen are undergraduate student interns for PAC@REDI through the Department of Economics at Colorado State University. They are originally from Thailand and from Vietnam, respectively.

Session Description

During this presentation, the language club representatives from the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Colorado State University will share how CSU students are exposed to a wide range of international events and practices, while also bringing in as well as going out to the community. These clubs are key to students’ opportunities to see the world close up, to develop an intercultural and global awareness, to encourage education or working abroad, and to share it with others in the community. Many examples and pictures will demonstrate the depth of these experiences.

Presenter Bios

Franziska Wilcox, Senior Instructor of German, Colorado State University

Franziska (Frankie) Wilcox is a faculty member in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Colorado State University. She greatly enjoys teaching and curricular design as well as building student connections and promoting student success. Frankie has been the faculty advisor to the CSU Deutschklub for the past 15 years, promoting German culture within the campus and Northern Colorado communities. Having traveled to twenty countries and having lived abroad has allowed her to experience various cultures and raise cultural awareness within students. Aside from traveling, Frankie spends much time with her husband and children, engaged in outdoor activities, such as skiing, hiking, camping, and dirt-bike riding.

Chisato Nii Steele, Instructor of Japanese, Colorado State University

Chisato Nii Steele has been a Japanese language instructor at Colorado State University since 2018. Prior to joining CSU, she taught Japanese and piano at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a former software engineer in Japan, instructional technology is one of her interests. She is enthusiastic about becoming a liaison between the CSU community and Japan by creating diverse intercultural opportunities. One of her goals in education is to help equip students with knowledge and skills that can be utilized in the real world.

Lorella Paltrinieri, Senior Instructor of Italian, Colorado State University

Lorella Paltrinieri has taught courses in Italian language, culture, and society since 1992 in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Colorado State University. She has been the only faculty for the Club Italiano, which engages students and community members with study abroad presentations, Italian cooking (and eating) nights, Italian films, language games and more. Lorella is a native speaker of Italian who enjoys sharing her culture and the uniqueness of gestures, expressions, and more in Italian language and culture.

Zach Rewinski, Instructor of Russian, Colorado State University

Zach Rewinski is now in his third year at Colorado State University. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation examines narrative poetry written in commemoration of the ten-year anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution, with particular focus on its use of documentary material and its place in debates over the aesthetic and political commitments of Soviet literature. At CSU, Zach teaches courses in Russian language, literature, and culture and is faculty advisor to the Russian Club.

Nick Barnard, Instructor of American Sign Language, Colorado State University

Nick Barnard has been working 28 years in the field of disabilities with an emphasis on deafness. He has a B.A. in deaf education from Texas Tech University, and an M.A. in rehabilitation counseling: deafness from Western Oregon University. During his career, he has worked with people who have physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities, and people who are deaf, blind, and deaf-blind.

Edward Sarasty, Graduate Student in Spanish and TEFL/TESL, Colorado State University

Edward Sarasty is a graduate student pursuing a joint master’s degree in Spanish and TEFL/TESL in the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and English Departments at Colorado State University. He did his undergraduate studies in foreign languages in Colombia, where he worked as a general English, EAP, and ESP teacher at the university level. He has taught academic writing in the USA, and he works in the Spanish Club at CSU. He is currently a graduate research assistant developing curriculum in Spanish for veterinary students. His interests include languages for specific purposes, curriculum design and development, task-based language teaching, and academic writing.

José Francisco Gallardo Montenegro, Graduate Student, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Colorado State University

José Francisco Gallardo Montenegro was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador to two very hard-working parents. He learned English throughout elementary, middle, and high school, and used to think in English as a young boy. Fun fact: The SAP button on the TV remote was his best friend. José attended two universities in Guayaquil before coming to Colorado State University as a transfer student and graduating in December 2020 with a B.A. in international studies concentrating in Latin American Issues. He is pursuing a master’s at CSU while developing his teaching style as a professional in the academic field.

Frédérique Grim, Professor of French, Colorado State University

Frédérique Grim is a professor of French at Colorado State University, primarily teaching courses in linguistics as well as methodologies, where her research also lies. She has been the faculty advisor to the French Club, Le Cercle Français, for 15 years and has been able to support students’ many inspirations to share the Francophone cultures on campus and in the community. Frédérique enjoys running, cooking and, of course, loves spending as much time as possible with her family in the outdoors (hiking, snowshoeing), crafting, playing games, and traveling.

Oliver Woody, President, Chinese Language Club, Colorado State University

Session Description

This workshop shares work in Ghana, West Africa, using a decolonial approach to community engagement. To promote transnational indigenous solidarity, two indigenous scientists, one Ghanaian and one Native Hawaiian, worked with CSU students and Ghanaian children to engage in science practices based on indigenous knowledge systems. Using Foldscopes (portable paper microscopes), they helped the children examine the stages of a mosquito’s life to prevent malaria in their community in an ecologically-friendly way. CSU students learned how youth tap into indigenous knowledge by gathering stories from their elders. Together they built a global community through the sharing of knowledge across transnational divides. We share stories, images, and sounds from the project that highlight the insights, passion, and cultural exchange everyone experienced.

Presenter Bios

Caridad Souza, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Colorado State University

Caridad Souza is associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and director of the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at Colorado State University. Her teaching and research interests include contemporary race & ethnic relations and theories, intersectional pedagogy & theory, multiracial and decolonial feminisms, and critical ethnography. Her community engagement work abroad includes projects focused on transnational solidarity around youth development. She uses feminist and anti-oppression research methods, pedagogy, and engagement frameworks to support increased embodiment among her students. She is fascinated with the concept of social healing towards a more equitable, just, and free society.

Samuel Donkor, Medical Laboratory Technician, SDA Hospital at Dominase, Ashanti Region of Ghana

Samuel Donkor works as medical laboratory technician with the SDA Hospital at Dominase in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. He is currently a final-year student at the Garden City University College pursuing a BSc. in medical laboratory technology. He plans postgraduate study in immunology with academic research in immune response to HIV infection, cancer immunology, and autoimmunity. His dream is to set up an NGO one day with like-minded individuals that will fund the education of the less privileged in society.

Marley Puanani Smith, Natural Resource Specialist, USDA Forest Service

Marley Puanani Smith is a kanaka maoli (Native Hawai’ian) who was raised in Colorado’s rural environment within the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Here, her connections with the natural world were grounded within her physical, mental and spiritual being. The knowledge from their Indigenous heritage and B.S. in forestry (CSU Alumni, 2020) helps her work towards establishing sustainable resource management based in transnational solidarity, social justice, and equity. As a natural resource specialist for the USDA Forest Service – and with her companion Luana –they are investing in future generations by establishing relationships and implementing adaptive practices to ensure global resource security.

Session Description

Human evolution was not a gradual, linear process as hominins adapted to change in surprising ways, then and even now. Regardless of whether it has been individual biological adaptations or community behavioral/social adaptations, they are adjustments to conditions and opportunities. Understanding how hominins adapted to environmental change in the past requires accurate reconstructions of the relationship between hominin spatiotemporal distributions and paleoenvironmental data, both of which are biased during the formation of the fossil and geological records. Humans respond to our dynamic modern world in many ways, including through the social milieu in which ideas are generated. The papers here tell different but connected stories of complex human adaptations.

Presenter Bios

Mica Glantz, Professor and Chair of The Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University

Mica Glantz is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University. She has conducted Paleoltihic fieldwork in Central Asia in order to examine the qualities of the preferred niche spaces of Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans during the late Pleistocene. Her work is focused on reconstructing the times and places these populations overlapped and admixture occurred.

Michael Pante, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Colorado State University

Michael Pante is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University. He studies the behavior and ecology of the genus Homo at the UNESCO world heritage site Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. His research tracks the evolution of human carnivory from 1.8-0.8 million years ago, a period that saw the evolution of a new human species (Homo erectus) and a more advanced stone technology (the Acheulean).

Andrew Du, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Colorado State University

Andrew Du is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University. He is interested in the ecological context of human evolution in the Plio-Pleistocene of eastern Africa. His research topics include analyzing the spatiotemporal distribution of ancient hominins and how different means of reconstructing ancient environments and ecologies do so at different spatiotemporal scales.

Emily Wilson, Instructor of Anthropology, Colorado State University

Emily Wilson is an instructor in the Anthropology Department and the Honors Program at Colorado State University. She focuses primarily on the archaeology of ancient trade, religion, and identity in the Mediterranean and has excavated extensively in Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

Kathleen Galvin, Professor of Anthropology and Director of The Africa Center, Colorado State University

Kathleen Galvin is a professor and director of The Africa Center at Colorado State University. She has conducted interdisciplinary social-ecological systems research in the drylands of Africa. Galvin works with local communities on issues of land-use change, biodiversity conservation, food security, and climate change impacts and adaptations. She works with local communities, ecologists, modelers, remote sensing and GIS experts to understand human-environmental interactions.

Session Description

The Arts and Crafts movement was a concerted effort begun by William Morris to put pleasure back into work for all those individuals whose lives had been transformed by the Industrial Revolution. In the face of a loss of skills to the assembly line, workers felt alienated from the social and cultural institutions that brought meaning to their lives (Koplos & Metclaf, 2010).

During the pandemic, classrooms have been transformed into virtual spaces. Learning has, at times, become automated, and students have felt a digital-age version of alienation. They have experienced a loss of joy. In the face of this loss, this panel explores how students can recover meaning through the study of languages, literatures, and cultures from around the world. These international experiences, these global communities, cannot be automated. Furthermore, as studies in neuroplasticity suggest, learning a new language increases gray matter density and white matter integrity. In this sense, languages are super-food for the brain. This nourishment fosters joy through creativity and connection. This panel concludes by suggesting how the field of teaching languages in the humanities brings joy to the human condition and impacts personal flourishing through engagement in the international community.

Presenter Bios

María Inés Canto, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Colorado State University

María Inés Canto is a Mexican feminist from the Yucatan Peninsula. She is a professor of Spanish in Mexican literature in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Colorado State University. She has published articles on Latina American literature, and her current research project focuses on incest in the narrative of contemporary female Mexican writers.

Jonathan Carlyon, Associate Professor of Spanish, Colorado State University

Jonathan Carlyon teaches literature and culture at Colorado State University, where he is an associate professor of Spanish. He has published in the area of history of the book in Colonial Latin America. With his colleague Steven Fassnacht, he has received grants and participated in collaborative studies on Spanish literature and hydroclimatology. In this area, he has co-directed undergraduate research along the Spanish pilgrimage route of Saint James, combining techniques from the digital humanities with those from natural resources. His current research project explores the symbolism of furniture in Latin American literature and culture, especially as it relates to the colonial period.

Session Description

COVID-19 has impacted student mobility at historic rates. This session will share findings of student experiences and learning outcomes while participating in a virtual exchange between an American university and a university in Hong Kong during the 2020-2021 academic year.

Presenter Bio

Greg Weaver, Advisor for CSU Online and Ph.D. Candidate in International Education Policy, University of Maryland

Greg Weaver currently serves as an advisor for CSU Online and is a Ph.D. candidate in international education policy at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on internationalization of higher education, global competencies, online learning and virtual exchange.

Session Description

For the past 14 years, Sonia Lynn has worked at the World Bank in Ukraine and Russia, implementing various energy and housing sector reforms. Having returned to the United States and now working for Extension at Colorado State University, she is excited to share her experiences working overseas and to draw parallels between World Bank program implementation througout the world and Extension work in Colorado.

Presenter Bio

Sonia Lynn, Grant Management Coordinator, CSU Extension, Colorado State University

Sonia Lynn is an international development specialist with close to 20 years of economic, policy development, and finance experience working in the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Her passion is in facilitating dialogue between various stakeholders and attracting funding for the programs that bring in sustainable and tangible results for society.

Session Description

Chairs are seen all over the world, but they are rarely thought of. However, inevitably, when people from different cultures meet, there is a moment when they sit down and talk. By considering what goes into building a chair, we may begin to explore cultural differences from around the world that, nonetheless, are unified by the act of and the physiology involved in sitting. Considerations of how we sit, where we sit, and with whom we sit will provide a point of entry for a discussion on why we sit. International in potential scope for this conference, we will focus on the cultures and languages of the American continent. The participant responses to why we sit will be compared to examples found in various cultures and different historical periods. As an active learning component to the panel, we will attempt to design a chair fit for any international gathering.

Presenter Bio

Jonathan Carlyon, Associate Professor of Spanish, Colorado State University

Jonathan is a hobbyist woodworker and student of the craft. He teaches Spanish at Colorado State University. His current research looks at the symbolism of furniture in Latin American literature and culture, especially as it relates to the colonial period.

Session Description

This session will present current CSU research that aims to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a set of 17 interconnected global goals aimed at all areas of sustainable development. Researchers will share current activities focused on both basic and applied aspects of research, and outline plans for future research as we embark on the final decade before the UN hopes to achieve all goals by 2030.

Presenter Bios

Patrick Keys, Lead Scientist, School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Colorado State University.

Patrick Keys is lead scientist for the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University. His research is focused on a broad range of global sustainability challenges, including climate change impacts, cross-scale risks, and social-ecological tele-connections. His doctoral work sought to understand the dynamics between sources and sinks of atmospheric moisture, particularly how socially-driven changes in evaporation could be related to downwind, terrestrial precipitation. He has also worked on other topics ranging from the role of science fiction in developing more radical scenarios for the future, to the importance of recognizing the Anthropocene as a new baseline for global risk analysis.

Kathleen Galvin, Professor of Anthropology and Director of The Africa Center, Colorado State University

Kathleen Galvin is professor in Anthropology at Colorado State University. She has conducted interdisciplinary social-ecological systems research in the savannas of East Africa for over 30 years. Galvin addresses issues of land-use change, conservation, climate variability, diet and nutrition of Africa pastoralists, and resilience and adaptation strategies throughout the world’s drylands. She works with ecologists, modelers, remote sensing and GIS experts, and local communities to understand human-ecological problems and interactions. Her current research focuses on understanding the trade-offs of community-based conservation for people and the environment throughout the African continent.

Rekha Warrier, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Colorado State University

Rekha Warrier is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University. She is currently working on a project exploring the cross-scale interactions among sustainable development goals in Kenya. She received a doctoral degree in ecology from Colorado State University in 2019. Her dissertation explored complex human-tiger interactions in a densely populated agricultural landscape in India. Her broader research interests lie at the intersection of climate change, sustainability, and the conservation of large mammals. She hails from India and has had the privilege to work as a field biologist in many of India’s wild landscapes.

Session Description

Last semester Colorado State University (CSU) initiated a very unique class that undergraduate and graduate students really got engaged with and thoroughly enjoyed. These students got to learn from industry leaders and experts about how the U.S. meat industry put meat on the world’s table. Topics such as carcass utilization, trade support, buyer education and loyalty, market presence, product image, crises management, and market access were discussed. Weekly discussions occurred with industry experts located in Japan, Mexico, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. The course included actual case studies and discussions about real-world events. This is a one-of-a-kind course not offered at any other university!

Presenter Bios

Philip M. Seng, Affiliate Professor of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University

Philip M. Seng oversaw the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) operations worldwide, providing direction for USMEF strategies and priorities in international programs, research, technical services, industry relations and global communications. He also served as the spokesman for USMEF and other exporting interests to government and private entities regarding international trade and foreign market development issues related to U.S. red meat products. Additionally, Seng served on the President’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Council in Washington, D.C. Seng has also been active in several industry-related organizations, including being the only American ever to serve as president of the International Meat Secretariat. In 2009, Seng was one of 21 charter members inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame. His marketing strategies and approach in Asian markets have received critical acclaim within the international business community, and USMEF’s tactics served as a case study in the Harvard University Business School.

Brad Morgan, Professor of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University

Brad Morgan’s research and expertise in meat tenderness and color is known nationally and internationally. Morgan has attracted over $14.5 million in extramural funding, published over 90 journal articles, given over 1,500 invited presentations, and conducted research in 29 countries. He has received numerous research and teaching awards, including the Outstanding Teaching Award from the American Meat Science Association along with the Outstanding Scientist in the Division of Agriculture at Oklahoma State University. Morgan is a past-president of the American Meat Science Association and was the senior director of Protein for the Performance Food Group (PFG) that delivered more than 125,000 food and food-related products to 85,000 customer locations daily. Recently, Morgan rejoined the Animal Science faculty at Colorado State University.

“How We Collectively Lost Our Minds: A Journalist Trying to Cover Today’s World”

Keynote Speaker Lulu Garcia-Navarro

Lourdes “Lulu” Garcia-Navarro is an American journalist and currently a podcast host with The New York Times. She was the host of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday where she reported on everything from #MeToo to immigration to the pandemic. Garcia-Navarro was the first Latina at the helm of a flagship show at the public broadcaster, as one reporter observed, “changing the way we hear the news.”

Previously a foreign correspondent, Garcia-Navarro served as NPR’s Jerusalem bureau chief from April 2009 to the end of 2012. Her coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and her vivid dispatches of the Arab Spring uprisings brought her wide acclaim and five awards in 2012, including the Edward R. Murrow and Peabody Awards for her coverage of the Libyan revolt. She then moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, covering South America. Her series on the Amazon rain forest was a Peabody finalist and won an Edward R. Murrow Award for best news series. Garcia-Navarro’s insightful and empathetic work also won her a Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club, and the Alliance for Women and the Media’s Gracie Award for outstanding individual achievement.

Garcia-Navarro has years of experience interviewing world leaders, authors, artists and people living on the front lines of a changing world. She has trekked through the Amazon to talk to environmental vigilantes, traveled to multiple war zones to interview militants, and sat with asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

As well as NPR, Garcia-Navarro also worked at BBC World Service, Voice of America, the Associated Press Television News and AP Radio. She grew up in Miami born to Cuban and Panamanian parents in a tight-knit Latino community. Her undergraduate degree is from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a concentration in Latin American studies. She received her master’s in international journalism from City University in London.

Moderator

Erin O’Toole, Host & Producer, KUNC

Erin O’Toole is host of KUNC’s Colorado Edition. She works closely with a team of producers and reporters to bring context and diverse perspectives to the important issues of the day affecting Northern Colorado. She spent nearly nine years in commercial radio in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to San Bernardino, California, to serve as Morning Edition host and reporter for KVCR. O’Toole was selected as a USC/Annenberg Health Journalism Fellow in 2008, reporting primarily on the healthcare overhaul, domestic violence, and health awareness media campaigns. She joined KUNC as Morning Edition host in 2009, and served as assistant news director from 2017 to 2019.

Session Description

The Animal Population Health Institute (APHI) at Colorado State University is working with government and non-government organizations in Southeast Asian countries to combat African swine fever. Our participation in the global animal health initiatives is aimed towards better food security. The training programs APHI conducted during the pandemic were virtual and were aimed to provide specific technical assistance to strengthen capacities of animal health authorities in four countries: China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Presenter Bios

Mo Salman, Professor of Clinical Sciences and Director of the Animal Population Health Institute, Colorado State University

Mo Salman is a professor in Clinical Sciences and founder and director of the Animal Population Health Institute at Colorado State University. His focus is on surveillance and survey methodologies for animal diseases with an emphasis on infectious diseases. He has been involved in building science-based national animal health and zoonoses programs in more than 20 countries. Over 30 Ph.D. students graduated under his supervision from CSU.

Sangeeta Rao, Associate Professor of Clinical Sciences, Colorado State University

Sangeeta Rao is an associate professor in Clinical Sciences with a special interest in identifying analytical approaches to tackle disease spread and antimicrobial resistance patterns of infectious agents including bioinformatics. She is involved in veterinary epidemiology training programs and collaboratives as well as multidisciplinary research to improve animal health. Rao is one of the resource persons for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) involved in training veterinarians and public health professionals from South Asian countries through the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) and the Field Epidemiology Training Program for Veterinarians (FETPV).

Session Description

This session will discuss research conducted over a year on rural development in Japan and France. It will provide a brief historic overview of the two countries in regard to their rural development and then discuss the modern challenges they are facing economically, politically, and culturally. How have these two countries developed rural resilience differently? What similar methods have they used? Have they been successful? Why is a comparison between Japan and France, in particular, useful or interesting? It will then go into a discussion of the future of rural resilience and development in Japan and France, and offer potential solutions to the challenges they are facing today. Attendees will be invited to contribute potential solutions/ideas of their own.

Presenter Bio

Natalie Montecino, Undergraduate Student, International Studies, Colorado State University

Natalie Montecino is a senior undergraduate student at CSU originally from Littleton, Colorado. She is majoring in international studies and minoring in French, Japanese, political science, and international development. She loves language learning, cultural studies, and travel, and is hoping to do field work in both Japan and France after graduation. Eventually, she would like to pursue a graduate degree in geography to better understand how community identity develops in relation to the environment.

Session Description

Vice President for Inclusive Excellence Kauline Cipriani and Vice Provost for International Affairs Kathleen Fairfax discuss the interconnection between domestic and international diversity.

Presenter Bios

Kauline Cipriani, Vice President for Inclusive Excellence, Colorado State University

Kauline Cipriani is the vice president for Inclusive Excellence at Colorado State University. Her career has focused on broadening access for historically and currently underrepresented and underserved populations, developing strategic equity and inclusion initiatives, fostering welcoming and nurturing academic and workplace climates, and disrupting institutional systems that reinforce the status quo.

Cipriani joined CSU in August 2021 after serving as associate dean for Inclusive Excellence at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She holds a Ph.D. in food microbiology from Purdue University.

Kathleen Fairfax, Vice Provost for International Affairs, Colorado State University

Kathleen Fairfax is the vice provost for International Affairs at Colorado State University. She oversees a staff of more than 60 professionals within International Programs and collaborates with colleges and units across campus to implement the University’s internationalization initiatives. She serves on the President’s Cabinet and the Council of Deans.

Prior to CSU, Fairfax served as the assistant vice president for International Affairs at South Dakota State University. Her career has also included serving as vice provost for Global Education Services at Arizona State University, director of the Office of Study Abroad at Michigan State University and at Purdue University, as well as similar roles at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Fairfax holds a master’s degree in political science/international relations from Indiana University/Bloomington and a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Session Description

Jordan’s 2017 Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was hailed as the most advanced in the region when it was passed, offering comprehensive protections for people with disabilities. Four years later, little has changed throughout the country, with most locations remaining difficult to access, even for able-bodied people.

This presentation will examine a series of interviews conducted in Jordan with disability rights advocates, trustees on the Higher Council for the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities, and disabled Jordanians. Combining the perspectives of those that make policy and those affected by these policies provides an overview of Jordan’s shortcomings at multiple stages in carrying out its accessibility legislation. Using Jordan’s failure to implement disability rights policy as a case study, session participants will gain a deeper understanding of how to turn human rights legislation into concrete results.

Presenter Bio

Sam Stoltz, Undergraduate Student, International Studies and Political Science, Colorado State University

Sam Stoltz is an international studies and political science double major at Colorado State University with a concentration in the Middle East and North Africa. With a focus on human rights policy, Sam hopes to continue to promote human security as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. He is active with the International Programs Cultural Mentors team, welcoming and supporting international students here at CSU.

Session Description

This workshop will use an inverted intellectual strategy in keeping with a postcolonial educational perspective. Instead of using Western knowledge and educational scenarios, it will present examples from the practices of peace educators in the regions of intractable conflicts. This is not to defy Western educational practice but to add to the tank of intellectual inquiry by making it more inclusive and multi-perspective. This is very relevant to U.S. classrooms today into which educators are welcoming refugees from regions of intractable conflicts and more recently from Afghanistan. Dialogic reasoning will be used during discussions and participants will be free to comment on and refine their understanding of Peace Education (PE) pedagogy.

10 Minutes: Defining and reviewing the term PE pedagogy
10 minutes: Two examples of PE pedagogy used by peace educators around the world
20 minutes: Reflections and comments
10 minutes: Participants’ commitment to incorporating PE pedagogy into their field of work (challenge by choice)

Presenter Bio

Runeela Jalal, Ph.D. Student, Education, Colorado State University

Born in Pakistan, raised in Libya, and having taught in various countries (Pakistan, USA, China) has led Runeela Jalal to experience diversity from multiple lenses. Runeela came to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar and earned her master’s degree in TEFL/TESL. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in education from Colorado State University. Her research interests are peace education, impacts of multiculturalism on education, and evolving cultures in education.

Session Description

CSU supports student travelers in all regions of the world. Students and faculty travel with students to countries placed on the CSU Higher-Risk Destination List, or travel involving high-risk activities must receive authorization for travel from the International Travel Oversight Committee (ITOC). The ITOC is composed of staff from Education Abroad, Risk Management, legal counsel, Student Affairs, and support/safety assessment. Travel may be authorized based on educational necessity, high-level in-country support, duration, specific location, measures taken to mitigate risks, previous travel experience, or other factors. Join this panel discussion with CSU’s ITOC and learn how they support your international travel to higher risk destinations, as well as how they have helped students in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Bring your questions! Time will be provided for Q&A.

Presenter Bios

Aimee Jones, Interim Director, Education Abroad, Colorado State University

Aimee Jones currently serves as the interim director of Education Abroad in the Office of International Programs at Colorado State University. She oversees the Education Abroad unit, including personnel management, operations planning, fiscal management, risk management, development and oversight of recommended programs, alumni relations, and program evaluation.

Sally Alexander, Chief Risk Officer and Director of the Office of Risk Management & Insurance, Colorado State University

Sally Alexander serves as Chief Risk Officer for Colorado State University. As director, she manages the operations of the Office of Risk Management & Insurance (RMI) as well as leading institutional risk management efforts on campus. She has a Bachelor of Arts from University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; an LLB (Bachelor of Laws) from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa; a master’s in environmental policy and management (MEPM) from the University of Denver, Colorado. She also has her associate’s in risk management (ARM). She graduated in May 2018 from CSU with her Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.).

Linda Schutjer, Senior Legal Counsel, Office of General Counsel, Colorado State University System

Linda Schutjer is senior legal counsel in the Office of General Counsel for the Colorado State University System. She has had a long and successful history as a university attorney. She joined Colorado State University in 2008 where she support the University’s research mission. Prior to that, she worked in the Office of General Counsel at The George Washington University, a private university in Washington DC. She started her legal career in private practice at law firms focusing on real estate, financing, and lending.

Derek Smallwood, International Risk Manager and Assistant Director, Education Abroad, Colorado State University

Derek Smallwood sits in a dual role in international risk management for both Education Abroad and the Office of Risk Management and Insurance at Colorado State University. Derek serves in the evaluation of international risk and risk mitigation, and oversees departmentally initiated activities and undergraduate advising for the Middle East and Africa. He is the chair of the International Travel Oversight Committee (ITOC). Derek has a Bachelor of Arts in global studies and is pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at CSU.

Anthony Appleton, Research Safety Culture Coordinator, Office of the Vice President for Research, Colorado State University

Anthony Appleton is the research safety culture program coordinator, a liaison-style position acting as the “ganache” between researchers and the various safety and compliance units at Colorado State University. Anthony truly believes research safety is not just about the researcher but about the entire community involved in research. ITOC truly embodies this principle, which Anthony serves by providing a perspective focused on conducting research safely while abroad.