Event
Panelists and Biographies
According to the 2006 IIE Open Doors report, engineering students only make up 2.9% of all students studying abroad. With such a small percentage of engineering students study abroad, the international education community is challenged to provide alternatives in addition to the traditional study abroad experience for engineering and science students to gain overseas experience.
On Thursday, March 29, 2007, IAESTE United States and AIPT were joined by a distinguished group of guests for a panel discussion on the benefits and best practices of sending U.S. technical students abroad on internships, short-term experiential programs and seminars. The panel presentations and discussion that followed were enormously informative and we were honored to have been able to be a part of such an intriguing discussion.
We will be posting next steps within the week and look forward to hearing from those who attended for more ideas and thoughts.
If you were unable to attend, the panel was moderated by:
Mark Lazar- The Institute of International Education
Panelists included:
Betty Jo Armstrong - Telelogic
Nitesh Batra - SyApps, LLC.
Dr. Cheryl A. Matherly - University of Tulsa
Biographies
Mark S. Lazar, Deputy Vice President for Scholarship Programs and International Operations at the Institute of International Education, oversees the work of the Institute’s global network of offices around the world and supervises the scholarship and training programs that the Institute administers on behalf of corporations, foundations, individuals, international organizations and U.S. government agencies. Programs include: the Ford Foundation Global Travel and Learning Fund, the GE Foundation Scholar-Leaders Program, the Japan-IMF Fellowships and more than a dozen Children of Employee scholarship programs for major international corporations including AIG, Harman International and Lockheed Martin.
Lazar’s portfolio also includes several Science and Technology initiatives to help increase global awareness in these fields. Programs include the NSF-funded, Central Europe Summer Research Institute (CESRI), which supports US graduate students in the sciences to complete summer research internships at Central European institutions and the Global Engineering Education Exchange (Global E3), a consortium of over 80 universities in the U.S. and abroad to promote study abroad in the fields of engineering.
Prior to this position, Lazar served as Executive Director of Scholarship and Training Programs, Director for International Operations and Assistant Director for Development at IIE. He was also Regional Director of IIE’s office for Central and Eastern Europe, based in Budapest, Hungary from 1995-98. Before joining IIE in 1994, he served as a program coordinator for the Soros Foundations and the Central European University.
Lazar holds master’s degrees from New York University in urban planning and Columbia University in European history. He has a bachelor's degree in history from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Nitesh Batra is a director with SyApps. A native of Delhi, India he graduated with dual bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from University of Maryland, College Park and holds a master's degree in computer engineering from the same institution. He worked for Freddie Mac as a Senior Business Analyst before deciding to join SyApps.
He traveled to Japan and Singapore as part of the INNOVATE program through IAESTE United States and Rice University. He has studied abroad in Brazil. He has also traveled extensively in Europe. In spare time he likes to play table tennis and read on issues related to globalization.
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Dr. Cheryl Matherly is Associate Dean for Global Education and Applied Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Tulsa, where she directs the institution’s international study, work, and volunteer programs. Matherly’s special area of interest is the impact of globalization on the workplace.
She currently co-directs the INNOVATE conference, which involves students from five countries in the study of globalization and technology in Asia, and the NanoJapan program, funded by the National Science Foundation in order to expand international research opportunities for science and engineering majors.
Matherly has written numerous articles for national publications on international work opportunities, and most recently co-authored the book How to Get a Job in Europe. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants for international education administrators (Germany and Japan.)
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