Faculty Spotlights
Education Abroad Faculty Awards
Each year, the UNC Charlotte Office of Education Abroad recognizes exceptional faculty members who have demonstrated a commitment to fostering global engagement and designing enriching educational experiences in other countries. Since 2024, the International Excellence and Curriculum Design Awards have honored faculty directors who demonstrate exceptional success in these areas. These prestigious awards serve to celebrate and showcase the exemplary contributions of our faculty in furthering our institution’s mission of academic excellence for students from all backgrounds.
Education Abroad International Excellence Award
This award recognizes a faculty member with extensive experience leading high-quality education abroad programs. Honorees have demonstrated exceptional dedication to fostering global learning through thoughtfully designed and impactful international experiences. Their leadership has enriched student learning, expanded cross-cultural understanding, and strengthened the institution’s global engagement. Recipients of this award have consistently gone above and beyond in their efforts to support students in developing global competencies, ensuring transformative and academically rigorous education abroad experiences.
Education Abroad Curriculum Design Award
This award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional innovation in designing an education abroad program that seamlessly integrates with the UNC Charlotte curriculum. Honorees have created academically rigorous programs that support students’ progress toward graduation while providing meaningful international experiences. Their program design ensures accessibility, strong student recruitment, and sustained impact, making global learning an integral part of the academic journey. Recipients of this award have successfully developed a program that exemplifies both academic excellence and international engagement, fostering student success through thoughtful curricular alignment.
International Excellence Award Winners
The 2025 International Excellence Award Winner: Aspen Hochhalter, Associate Professor of Photography in the Department of Art & Art History, College of Arts + Architecture
A driving force behind the department’s international programming since 2010, Aspen has developed and led multiple transformative study abroad experiences, including the biennial Ireland: Creative Pilgrimage and Italy: Art & Culture in Rome & Venice summer programs, as well as the annual Italy: Italian Art & Culture in Venice spring break program.
Her programs are known for their depth, creativity, and ability to meaningfully shape students’ global competencies. Under her guidance, students are not only immersed in rich cultural and artistic environments, but they return more confident, self-aware, and grounded in their place within a global world. Through her thoughtful mentorship, innovative program design, and passionate advocacy for international education, Aspen has had a lasting and life-changing impact on both her students and the broader university community.
The 2024 International Excellence Award Winner: Jane Houston, Adjunct Instructor of French in the Department of Languages, Culture and Translation Studies.
Jane Houston was recognized for her unwavering support of students interested in international experiences. Houston has served as the faculty director for the long-running France: French Culture and Civilization in Paris short-term education abroad program, and for the nearly four decades she has served our institution, she has been a consistent pillar of support for students interested in immersing themselves in a foreign culture – French or not.
Curriculum Design Award Winners
The 2025 Curriculum Design Award Winners: Gang Chen, Ph.D., Professor of Remote Sensing, Environmental Sustainability, Geospatial Big Data Analytics, and Human-Environment Interaction, and Colleen Hammelman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Urban Geography, Food Justice, and Immigration, both in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Chen and Hammelman were recognized for their collaborative and innovative approach to designing a research-focused education abroad experience rooted in experiential learning. As co-leaders of the Thailand: Lasting Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Landscape Change in Tropical Crop Cultivation summer program, they have provided students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary lens into the complex intersections of environment, agriculture, and society in a post-pandemic world.
Their program stands out for its intentional integration of intercultural and culture-specific pre-departure training, long-standing engagement with the Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Initiative, and use of assessment tools like the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES) to enhance learning outcomes. Supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant, their work exemplifies excellence in curriculum design that empowers students to engage critically with global challenges and develop meaningful cross-cultural competencies.
The 2024 Curriculum Design Award Winner: Jeff Balmer, Associate Professor in the David R. Ravin School of Architecture.
Jeff Balmer was recognized for his innovation in implementing a low-cost and impactful education abroad program that fits within the rigorous curriculum followed by Architecture students. For the 2024 iteration of the Italy: Architecture Semester in Rome + Istanbul program, Balmer welcomed an unprecedented thirty-nine students to Rome for their capstone terms at UNC Charlotte. Of these students, seventeen extended their program to join him in Türkiye for additional research into the architectural and urban culture of Istanbul and the ancient cities of the Aegean Coast.
The UNC Charlotte Office of Education Abroad is thrilled to announce the inaugural winners of the International Excellence and Curriculum…