During International Education Week (November 18-22), Purdue’s Office of Global Partnerships and the Global Academic Committee recognize four winners of the 2024 Purdue Award for Outstanding Leadership in Globalization.

This year’s two faculty winners are Eric Matson, professor of computing and information technology, director of the Center for Robotics Innovation, Commercialization and Education, and co-founder of M2M ITabs; and Christopher Lukasik, director of Fulbright Faculty Awards and associate professor of English. The two staff winners are Juan Diego Velasquez de Bedout, Deputy Director of the Office of Global Partnerships, Director of Latin American Programs and Director of Columbia Purdue Partnership; and Lauren Trondsen, CEO of Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Lab.

These university-wide awards are given annually to recognize faculty and staff for their dedicated efforts to increase Purdue’s global recognition as a leader in higher education, either comprehensively or within a specific pillar of the land-grant mission. Globalization in this context is defined as the development, facilitation, and support of programs and activities—in partnership with universities, agencies, and private sector representatives outside the United States—that advance Purdue’s institutional strategic goals embedded in Purdue’s next moves. Specifically, the awards recognize exceptional efforts involving Purdue faculty and/or students and international counterparts in learning, discovery, and/or engagement.

Eric Matson – Comprehensive Faculty Award

Throughout his career at Purdue, Matson has demonstrated his commitment to globalization through all aspects of Purdue’s land-grant mission. One of Matson’s colleagues at Purdue Polytechnic Institute noted that “from an education perspective, Eric’s greatest international contribution to Purdue was establishing the Korean Software Square program.” Through this program, Matson has facilitated research opportunities for more than 1,000 South Korean students over the past 13 years. In addition to working directly with visiting researchers, Matson has worked on projects around the world in countries such as France, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria and Kazakhstan. Collaborative projects like these have led to innovative research in areas such as the development of counter-UAV programs for civil infrastructure protection in several countries. Overall, Matson’s dedication to each pillar of Purdue’s land-grant mission is evident in his wide range of international activities.

Christopher Lukasik – Faculty Involvement Award

As his nominators in the College of Liberal Arts pointed out, Lukasik has significant international experience while at Purdue. “His work in the Provost’s Office has had a substantial impact throughout the university by raising Purdue’s global profile, international reputation and university performance.” Through Lukasik’s hard work and dedication, Purdue faculty have won 50 Fulbright Scholar Awards in 37 countries around the world (with six alternates). These global engagement efforts have resulted in Purdue being recognized as a top producing institution for the Fulbright US Scholar program for four of the past five years. Through his efforts to actively develop new recruitment strategies and university-wide procedures for Fulbright awards, Lukasik exemplified the significance of leadership in globalization.

Juan Diego Velasquez de Bedout – Comprehensive Staff Award

At all levels of Purdue’s land-grant mission of learning, discovery and engagement, Velasquez de Bedout’s work and dedication has focused on connecting Purdue faculty, staff and students with leading universities and partners in Latin America. The Columbia Purdue Partnership, which Velasquez de Bedout has led for more than a decade, is an example of win-win collaboration and innovation between campuses. Of note in his nomination, colleagues emphasize that Velasquez de Bedout is “an unparalleled international educator, facilitator and advocate for globalization at Purdue.”

For the past 10 years leading the Purdue – Columbia Undergraduate Research Experience, Velasquez de Bedout has welcomed undergraduate students from more than 10 of Columbia’s top universities. Over the course of the program, nearly 550 of these scientists “completed research at Purdue through their work with faculty mentors. With its welcoming and collaborative spirit, the work of Dr. Velasquez de Bedout ensured the strength of the Columbia Purdue Partnership with Colombian students representing the fifth largest international student population at Purdue.”

Lauren Trondsen – Staff Engagement Award

In his current position, Trondsen leads the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, which harnesses global food safety expertise in locally-led projects that address the root cause of foodborne illness in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria and Senegal. According to Trondsen’s colleagues, she “has been instrumental in leading partnerships between Purdue University, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 13 US research institutions, 17 international research institutions, and numerous private sector partners.” Trondsen’s leadership and efforts toward globalization at Purdue “resulted in (Fed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety) implementation of over $20 million in funding from USAID, positioning Purdue University to have the most significant global impact on the ability and food safety research practices. and politics to this day.”

Nominations for the 2025 awards are open

The Outstanding Leadership in Globalization Awards are cash awards open to all full-time faculty and staff members on the West Lafayette campus. Following existing procedures for administering the faculty and staff awards, each college or unit may submit up to three nominations for each award (i.e., three for faculty and three for staff) by March 14, 2025.

Nomination instructions are available online:

These awards were created to further reinforce the importance of the global work undertaken by Purdue faculty and staff. The awards demonstrate the institution’s commitment to Purdue’s next movespromoting world-changing research and transformative education for the benefit of the entire Purdue community of faculty, staff, and students, as well as overseas stakeholders.

International Education Week celebrates the benefits of international education and global exchange. A joint initiative of the US Departments of State and Education, the week promotes programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attracts future leaders from abroad to study, learn and share experiences. See the full list of Purdue’s activities this week Here.