Newsroom

“How You Can Help Refugees in the United States” is the headline of the New York Times article on February 17, 2017 in which Pitt student Sloane Davidson’s refugee resettlement efforts are featured. Ms. Davidson has created a national database to promote refugee resettlement and immigration service agencies in the Pittsburgh region. She is also building a website—Hello Neighbor—to pair volunteers with arriving refugees.   

Ms. Davidson is looking for “a diverse group of passionate neighbors” with a “figure it out as we go” attitude to act as mentors to refugees coming to Pittsburgh. The Hello Neighbor website is accepting financial donations that directly support refugee resettlement and foster the mission to build bridges and breakdown barriers. Sloane Davidson is a Master’s in Public Affairs student at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh.

Vanessa Sterling, Associate Director at the Study Abroad Office, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to participate in the 2017 Fulbright International Education Administrators seminar in Taiwan. For two weeks in March 2017, Dr. Sterling will join a team of 12 US colleagues who will attend briefings with faculty and administration, government officials, and leading educational experts at public and private institutions. The program includes campus visits to a cross-section of Taiwanese universities and colleges, and tours of historical and cultural sites. She will also have an opportunity to connect with a Pitt student currently on a study abroad exchange program at National Taiwan University.

The two-week intensive seminar is designed for US international education professionals and senior-level university administrators whose current role includes a substantial responsibility for enhancing the international dimension of their campus. As a Fulbirght Scholar, Dr. Sterling will have the opportunity to learn more about the Taiwanese education system and make connections with peers at universities and colleges in Taiwan. She will return to Pitt with an enhanced ability to encourage prospective study-abroad students as well as a new networks of US and international colleagues.

Belkys Torres, Associate Director for International Programs at the University Center for International Studies, has been selected to participate in the Senior Advisers Program for 2017-2018 for the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA). This prestigious mentoring program pairs newer Senior International Officers with seasoned professionals in international education, with the goal of working on specific deliverables to benefit Pitt's global priorities. Dr. Torres begins the program at the AIEA  conference in Washington, DC in February, and continues activities throughout the year. She will be mentored by Dr. Bailian Li, Vice Provost for International Affairs at North Carolina State University.

Participation in the Senior Advisers Program will provide Dr. Torres with an opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with other organizations and institutions. The program also allows the University of Pittsburgh--through Torres' work--to increase its strategic international partnerships and advance its Global Plan: Embracing the World. 

AIEA, is the only association in the world focused exclusively on professional development, advocacy, information sharing and networking for university leaders who are charged with strategic and comprehensive internationalization of higher education.

Juan J. Manfredi, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and professor of Mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh, has been elected a foreign member of the Societies Academy (Class of Natural Sciences) of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters for his outstanding accomplishments in the field of mathematics.  His permanent membership is effective January 1, 2017.   

This honor by the Society recognizes Dr. Manfredi’s deep collaborative ventures with researchers at the Norwegian Technical University of Trondheim, the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Stockholm, and with colleagues at other Scandinavian institutions.  His research focuses on the partial differential equations that govern the nonlinear potential theory of quasi-regular mappings in higher dimensions, their sub-elliptic extensions, and their game theoretic interpretations.  

Manfredi has published extensively in the major peer-reviewed journals of his discipline and has a strong record of National Science Foundation (NSF) support for his research. In addition to his teaching and research contributions.  He has served as an academic administrator—NSF program director, chair of our Department of Mathematics from 2005 until September 2007, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences until he was appointed Vice Provost.  He received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1994.

In 1989, Manfredi joined the University of Pittsburgh and was promoted to associate professor in 1993 and professor of Mathematics in 1998.  He was appointed Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies in 2010.  He received his Licenciado degree from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain, and his M.S. and Ph. D. from Washington University in Saint Louis. 

The Trondheim-based Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters is the oldest learned academy in Norway.  The Society has promoted scientific scholarship since its founding in 1760.

Angelina Cotler, Associate Director at the Center for Latin American Studies, has been recently appointed to serve on the Executive Committee of the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP). This is the first time the University of Pittsburgh will have a leadership role in the Consortium.

In this position, Dr. Cotler will participate in Executive Committee meetings, serve on standing committees, and collaborate with the recruitment of new CLASP members and candidates for the Executive Committee. Her three-year term runs from January 2017 through December 2019. Dr. Cotler served on this committee in the past when she was a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Cotler’s appointment will provide the Center for Latin American Studies with new opportunities to network and collaborate with universities and Latin American Studies centers, expand the reach of their work, and participate in conferences around the country.

The goal of CLASP is to promote all facets of Latin American studies in the United States and to foster global competency, language proficiency and cultural awareness of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Consortium encourages excellence in teaching with several awards; organizes workshops at national and regional conventions; promotes teaching of less commonly taught languages; supports K-12 and post-secondary professional development; and provides access to resources on interdisciplinary Latin American area studies.