Last year’s Annual Colloquium on International Engineering Education (ACIEE) was hosted by Texas A&M University at the Zachry Engineering Education Complex in College Station, Texas from November 5-7, 2025.

Conceived by the International Engineering Program at the University of Rhode Island nearly three decades ago, this was the first time that a college in Texas has hosted the event. Despite the distance, the IEP sent a delegation of attendees to participate in this yearly forum for global engineering topics. Counted among this group was Dr. Sigrid Berka, IEP executive director, as well as two dual master’s students and a fifth-year IEP student.Dr. Berka co-facilitated a workshop on global communication competencies for engineers and gave a talk on “Lessons Learned from an International dual degree Master’s Program.” She also presented “The International Engineering Program: What’s in it for Engineering and What for the Languages?”

With their very different backgrounds, the students all made for engaging presenters. Chinese IEP and industrial engineering student Cristian Varela traveled across the world – literally – to join the IEP team in Texas. Varela is in the middle of his fifth and final year in the IEP and is currently studying at Tunghai University in Taiwan. His presentation, entitled “Integrating Global Diplomacy Training into International Engineering Pathways: A Student Experience from the United Nations,” recapped his participation in the United Nations’ GA80 Science Summit last fall as a United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Fellow. As a student minoring in international development and with aspirations of working with the UN, one could see how Varela’s passion could lead him to travel to Texas from Taiwan to share his takeaways from this special UNITAR Global Diplomacy Initiative (GDI) Fellowship Program session. 

But it also was a full-circle moment for Varela. At the previous ACIEE, hosted by URI in 2024 at its Kingston campus, he was introduced to Larisa Schelkin, who could not have been a better match for helping him to explore his career aspirations. Schelkin, among other titles and activities, is the CEO of the non-profit Global STEM Education Center, Inc., teaches at UNITAR’s location in New York, and is involved with NASA GLOBE 21st Century Workforce Training & Education. Schelkin quickly became Varela’s mentor and encouraged him to apply for the UNITAR Fellowship, in essence making his dream come true. He is deeply grateful for her support and the inspiration she has provided in how to bridge the gap between engineering and diplomacy. On the graduate level, Lasse Franzen, is a dual master student from Germany, studying civil engineering at both the Technical University of Braunschweig and URI. Franzen is in the process of writing his master’s thesis at URI under the guidance of Dr. Vinka Craver, a professor of civil engineering and associate dean of research of the College of Engineering. He is also a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholar. 

The second was IEP alumnus Jacob Cultrera, a 2025 German and chemical engineering graduate. Cultrera is also participating in the dual master’s program between URI and TU Braunschweig, but with the exchange going in the opposite direction, having begun his master’s level studies in chemical engineering during the ’25-’26 academic year at URI. Later this year, he will travel to Braunschweig , Germany to finish the other half of his coursework.

Both Franzen and Cultrera participated as presenters in the 2025 ACIEE’s poster session and both won awards for their efforts, with Franzen receiving a third place and Cultrera a first place designation, respectively.

Moments like these, enabled by simple networking and openly discussing shared interests, are electric and life-changing – not just for the initial two or few who meet, but for everyone whose lives are touched by the ripple effects.

The ACIEE community has matured to an extent that its steering committee has decided to rotate hosting the annual colloquium among a broader spectrum of universities. Looking back, URI had sponsored the event for its first decade, then during the next fifteen years had organized it biennially with other institutions during the off years. Continuing the time-honored tradition of professional exchange, the ACIEE will be held by the University of Georgia in 2026. It is also projected to be hosted by the University of Cincinnati in 2027 and by URI once again the following year.