2024 Outstanding Leadership in Globalization Award winners announced; nominations sought for 2025

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

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

These university-level 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 land-grant mission pillar. Globalization in this context is defined as developing, facilitating and sustaining programs and activities — in partnership with universities, agencies and private-sector constituents outside the United States — that further Purdue’s institutional strategic goals embodied in Purdue’s Next Moves. Specifically, the awards recognize exceptional endeavors that involve faculty and/or students from Purdue and international counterparts in learning, discovery and/or engagement.

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Eric Matson – Faculty Comprehensive Award

Throughout his career at Purdue, Matson has demonstrated his dedication to globalization through all aspects of Purdue’s land-grant mission. One of Matson’s colleagues in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute noted that “from an education perspective, Eric’s biggest international contribution at Purdue was founding the Korean Software Square program.” Through this program, Matson has facilitated research opportunities for more than 1,000 South Korean undergraduate students for the last 13 years. In addition to working directly with visiting scholars, Matson has worked on projects across the world in countries like France, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria and Kazakhstan. Collaborative projects like these have led to groundbreaking research in areas like the development of counter unmanned aerial vehicles programs for civilian infrastructure protection in several countries. Across the board, Matson’s dedication to each pillar of Purdue’s land-grant mission is evident in the vast array of his international activities.

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Christopher Lukasik– Faculty Engagement Award

As highlighted by his nominators in the College of Liberal Arts, Lukasik has significant international experience while at Purdue. “His work in the Provost’s Office has made a substantial impact across 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 to 37 countries around the world (with six alternates). These global engagement efforts have resulted in Purdue being recognized as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Top Producing Institution for four of the past five years. Through his efforts of actively developing new recruitment strategies and universitywide procedures for the Fulbright awards, Lukasik has exemplified the meaning of leadership in globalization.

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Juan Diego Velasquez de Bedout – Staff Comprehensive Award

Across all levels of Purdue’s land-grant mission in learning, discovery and engagement, Velasquez de Bedout’s hard work and dedication has been focused on connecting Purdue faculty, staff and students with top universities and partners across Latin America. The Colombia Purdue Partnership, which Velasquez de Bedout has led for more than a decade, is an exemplar of cross-campus, win-win collaboration and innovation. Of note in his nomination, colleagues highlight that Velasquez de Bedout is “an unparalleled international educator, facilitator and advocate for globalization at Purdue.”

During the last 10 years leading the Undergraduate Research Experience Purdue – Colombia, Velasquez de Bedout has welcomed visiting undergraduate scholars from more than 10 of the top universities across Colombia. Throughout the program, nearly 550 of these scholars “have completed research at Purdue through their work with faculty mentors. With his welcoming and collaborative spirit, Dr. Velasquez de Bedout’s work has ensured the strength of the Colombia Purdue Partnership with Colombian students representing the fifth-highest international student population at Purdue.”

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Lauren Trondsen – Staff Engagement Award

In her current position, Trondsen manages the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, which leverages 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 played a pivotal role in leading partnerships among Purdue University, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 13 U.S. research institutions, 17 international research institutions and numerous private sector partners.” Trondsen’s leadership and efforts toward globalization at Purdue “have resulted in [the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety] implementing greater than $20 million in funding from USAID, positioning Purdue University to have the most significant global impact on food safety research capacity, practices and policy to date.”

2025 award nominations open

The Outstanding Leadership in Globalization Awards are monetary awards open to all categories of full-time university faculty and staff members on the West Lafayette campus. Following the existing procedures for administering 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:

• Instructions for faculty nominations
• Instructions for staff nominations

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

International Education Week celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. A joint initiative of the U.S. 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 exchange experiences. See Purdue’s full list of activities this week here.