How to Apply

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For Students

Student teams are comprised of 3-4 students from different majors and/or colleges and schools. International students are eligible and encouraged to participate. Individual student projects will be considered if appropriately justified and under exceptional circumstances.

Apply

1. Select a Faculty Program. Attend an information session to learn more.
2. Form a team with 3-4 undergraduate students from different majors.
3. Identify a project that fits within the faculty program’s theme. Choose from a list of project examples or propose your own.
4. Teams must submit their application via email to presidentsaward@austin.utexas.edu by the deadline of 5 pm on November 14, 2025.

• Submit one application per team
• Students can only join one team and submit one application
• Application includes: 
  • Project Summary
  • Team Composition
  • Give back to UT
  • Student Resumes

Award Details

The award covers international travel expenses, living expenses, and health insurance.

Eligibility

In order to apply, undergraduate students are required to satisfy the following requirements:

• Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA*
• Good standing with the university**
• Students have to be enrolled in the fall semester following summer participation

* Students with a GPA below 3.0 will be considered if endorsed by a faculty member.

** Students must be in good academic and disciplinary standing to apply to and participate in international education opportunities. Student may not be on disciplinary probation, suspension or deferred suspension at the time of application, prior to or during their time abroad. Students on academic probation may not apply or participate.

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Student Project Examples

Decentralized Solutions for Global Water Scarcity and Security

Project 1: Engineering Innovation for Efficient Solar Powered Water Treatment

Projects in this theme seek to optimize Solar Water Farm (SWF) reverse osmosis systems for diverse regional water quality conditions in East Africa. Research focuses on developing and testing pretreatment strategies, such as lime softening, to address membrane scaling challenges specific to different water sources. Through bench-scale experiments and pilot testing in Kenya and Tanzania, the project aims to create community-specific SWF designs that maximize treatment efficiency based on local water characteristics.

Projects may seek to address:

• Lime softening pretreatment and other innovations to address membrane scaling
• Bench-scale experiments using water modeling Dodoma’s source water quality
• Determining optimal pretreatment dosage and strategy
• Pilot testing effectiveness in Dodoma
• Comparative framework development between Kenya and Tanzania sites for community-specific SWF designs

Project 2: Water Security Frameworks and SWF Impact Assessment

Projects in this theme seek to develop comprehensive frameworks to evaluate water security and measure the socioeconomic impacts of SWF interventions across different governance contexts. Using household surveys and integrated data sources, researchers quantify changes in water costs, health outcomes, time burden, and access distance while comparing devolved (Kenya) versus centralized (Tanzania) water management systems. The research creates transferable assessment tools that can guide optimal water treatment intervention strategies globally based on local water source characteristics and community needs.

Projects may seek to address:

• Developing comprehensive water security assessment frameworks
  • Developing household survey instruments and conducting surveys across Tanzania and Kenya
  • Quantifying, characterizing, and visualizing socioeconomic impacts such as cost, health, time, and distance
  • Assessing the feasibility and community interest in multi-use SWF applications (e.g., whether additional generation can power public spaces), perceptions of solar technology (trust, beliefs about long-term sustainability), and social impacts of SWF employment
  • Developing frameworks for the integration of other data types, such as local clinic records or satellite imagery
• Creating transferable frameworks for water treatment interventions globally based on water source and use characteristics
  • Identifying community-specific optimal intervention strategies for SWFs and MO filters
  • Comparative analysis between devolved (Kenya) and centralized (Tanzania) water management systems

Project 3: Decentralized Water Product Design and Co-Design

Projects in this theme will seek to scale household-level water filtration by integrating humanitarian engineering with design cognition research to develop Moringa-based filters through collaborative processes with end-users. Research examines how co-design practices influence technology ownership, adoption, and user self-efficacy while simultaneously conducting technical performance testing of filter prototypes across different water quality contexts. The project builds local innovation capacity through educational interventions and STEM workshops that empower communities to maintain and adapt water filtration technologies independently.

Projects may seek to address:

• How perspective-taking practices, collaborative design processes, and other aspects of design cognition between engineers and end-users influence technology ownership and adoption
• Assessment of how end-users’ perceptions of technology ownership, self-efficacy, and identity as innovators could impact adoption
• The technical development of Moringa filters, such as:
  • Lab-based bacteria and virus removal testing at UT
  • Creating optimized prototypes based on locally available materials in Wote and Dodoma
  • Comparative analysis of filter performance across different water quality contexts in Kenya and Tanzania
  • Usability studies for building and using prototypes at the individual user and household levels
• Educational interventions that build local capacity for innovation, ownership, and maintenance of water filtration technologies (e.g., Moringa filters)
  • Developing hands-on STEM outreach workshops with UDOM students

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Global Challenges in Hearing Loss: An Australian Immersion Experience

1. 1. Evaluating early intervention strategies at The Shepherd Centre
   2. Assessing cultural and educational models for deaf-blind services at NextSense,
   3. Analyzing next-generation implant technologies at Cochlear Ltd through observational learning
   4. Researching translational science in underserved populations through seminars and interviews with researchers at National Acoustic Laboratories
   5. Analyzing and creating projects on “listening” skills in Australia
   6. Designing outreach models for rural hearing care and evaluating intervention effectiveness in diverse populations
   7. Conducting interviews with researchers and corporate partners at Cochlear to understand innovation pipelines and industry-academia collaboration
   8. Examining the approach used by the NextSense team to minimize barriers for families of people with hearing or vision loss 
   9. Designing culturally sensitive hearing care
   10. Comparing the US and Australian models of hearing system for the elderly
   11. Comparing hearing research priorities in the US and Australia
   12. Examining acoustics and hearing in the Sydney Opera house to understand how it caters to the needs of individuals with hearing loss
   13. Analyzing how hearing technology development is driven by the market need 
   14. Conducing a survey of hearing loss and public services available for adults and children with deafness and considering how it compares with Texas 

Get Started

If you are eligible and interested in submitting a proposal, attend an information session to learn more about the application and implementation process.

Explore Events »

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For Faculty

Faculty are critical to the success of the President’s Award for Global Learning.

Faculty teams are comprised of 2-3 faculty. The faculty team must include two faculty leaders and an optional third faculty serving as mentor. Faculty form interdisciplinary teams and identify both a global challenge and an international partner, considering how their project and/or regional expertise contribute to the team. The proposed challenge has to be one that can be addressed in a global context, strengthened from an interdisciplinary perspective and is not specifically related to an individual’s research agenda. The faculty team should consider how to expand existing research interests or international relationships to incorporate interdisciplinary student learning. Students will then identify a new problem space and appropriate project or research-based questions within this area and will work under the faculty leadership throughout all phases of the program.

Each faculty team/student cohort will engage in experiential learning with both on-campus coursework and international travel.  Faculty teams, in virtual collaboration with the international partner(s), will teach two courses to the program participants:

1. Spring 2027: A 3-credit course that focuses on the technical, cultural, and language/linguistic learning aspects associated with both the global challenge and the student projects. Language/cultural instruction may be taught by a member of the faculty team or by an outside specialist
2. Fall 2027: A 1-credit course that focuses on project outcomes, including sharing lessons learned, disseminating information pertinent to the project to local and regional audiences, as appropriate, and increasing visibility for the identified global challenge

Travel to one or two international locations may occur during spring break 2027, summer 2027, and/or December 2027-January 2028 (winter term). Travel can include one or two trips for a total of six weeks abroad.

UT faculty, including tenure-track and non-tenure track positions, are encouraged to apply.

Award Details

Eligibility

The President’s Award for Global Learning is only open to UT Austin tenured and tenure-track faculty members, lecturers, professors of practice, and Assistant or Associate Deans. Teams of 2-3 faculty members must consider a topic that will benefit from being addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective. Only one proposal per faculty member may be submitted.

1. Attend or view an information session or meet with Texas Global staff to review the faculty roles and program expectations before submitting a proposal.
2. A letter of support from the most appropriate academic leadership (e.g., department chair, center director, etc.) at UT Austin for the proposed collaboration for each faculty member. The letter must include a statement of support for the faculty member to co-teach the 3-credit and 1-credit courses.
3. Written acknowledgement from the dean for each faculty member in support of the proposal and indicating their support for the faculty to co-teach the fall and spring courses.
4. Commit to fulfill all program expectations, including travel with the team for two trips (maximum of six weeks of travel).

Apply

Applications for 2025-2026 proposals are now closed. The application for the next cycle will be posted in spring 2026.

 

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