Dr. MacCarty named Evans' Scholar, Erskine Fellow, and 2020 International Service Award winner

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Laboratory flasks.

OSU's Humanitarian Engineering program received some important visibility recently as our faculty member Dr. Nordica MacCarty received several college, university, and international honors.

At the Celebrate Excellence event put on the by the College of Engineering September 22nd, Dr. MacCarty was named Evans' Scholar of Humanitarian Engineering. This titled faculty position and associated funding is made possible by the generous endowment from Dick and Gretchen Evans and is one of the highest honors available for an Assistant Professor. The purpose of this fund is to attract and retain faculty by promoting and rewarding excellence in humanitarian engineering, and will be used to support student engagement in projects across the globe.

At the University Day celebration on September 14th and 15th, Dr. MacCarty was also announced as the 2020 OSU Faculty Senate's International Service Award winner. This award "recognizes exemplary, ongoing contributions of OSU faculty and staff to the internationalization of the university by enhancing student, faculty, and staff awareness and participation in international education, research, and related activities. As further recognition, the award includes a plaque and $1,000." Previous winners include Dr. Kendra Sharp in 2016 and two other MIME faculty within the past 5 years, indicating the significant international contributions of our faculty. Below is the award text from the University Day Award winner website:

"The opportunity to help develop the budding humanitarian engineering program brought Nordica MacCarty to Oregon State in 2015. The mission of this program is to provide students with the opportunities to use methods from multiple disciplines to address basic human needs and improve quality of life for underserved populations globally. She is a member of the program’s leadership team, and helps cultivate local and international networks for conducting research, coursework and program development, helps recruit graduate students, serves on the curriculum committee, maintains the website and social media accounts and serves as a point of contact for students interested in pursuing a minor. As an ambassador of this program, she has spoken to nearly 2,500 current and potential students about the opportunities available to use engineering to make a difference globally, presented at multiple engineering and entrepreneurial professional organizations across Oregon, and hosted events for visiting Oregon high school students. She has also developed and twice implemented a two-course series based on a faculty-led study abroad course in Guatemala. Students in her lab have traveled to Thailand, Uganda, Ghana, Guatemala, and Honduras for a total of over 622 student-days of in-field student research." 

In addition to these local recognitions, Dr. MacCarty also recently received an Erskine Fellowship and Visiting Scholar appointment at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand for her sabbatical beginning in 2021. As a part of this fellowship, Dr. MacCarty and her family will travel to New Zealand for 4 months to work with faculty in UC's humanitarian engineering program to offer a course on innovating wiith the nearby indigenous Maori communities. This curriculum will be based on the new humanitarian engineering course she developed here on campus and will offer again this winter with co-instructor from Applied Anthropology, Dr. Shaozeng ZhangHEST/ANTH 201 - Innovation for Social Impact.

We congratulate Dr. MacCarty for these recognitions and look forward to sharing in the ongoing opportunities for our program that will result!

 

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Dr. MacCarty

 

Dec. 5, 2020