The Office of the Vice President for Research, in partnership with the Global Education Office, is excited to announce the faculty and student winners of this year’s Globally-Engaged Research Awards. 

“Our UNM faculty and students engaged in international research bring exceptional perspectives, broaden our research scope and landscape, and offer unique outlooks about how the world around us works beyond our direct community. It’s essential that we celebrate their research, scholarship, and creative works,” said Ellen Fisher, UNM vice president for research.

The Globally-Engaged Research Awards aim to highlight the dynamic international research conducted by UNM students and faculty. They showcase existing activities and elevate the visibility and caliber of future research by promoting the incorporation of cross-cultural perspectives and international relevance into the UNM research enterprise. The award emphasizes UNM’s commitment to robust, intentional, international partnerships in our research and classrooms to solve a wide range of global issues and prepare a new generation of scholars to work and live in an interconnected and rapidly evolving world.

2023 Faculty Award
Alok Bohara | Professor of Economics 
Bohara is being recognized for his leadership of the Nepal Study Center.

2023 Graduate Awards
Beau Murphy | Ph.D. candidate | Anthropology
Murphy is being recognized for his archaeological fieldwork on political economy in Chile.

Esther Elia | MFA student | Fine Arts
Elia is being recognized for her research on Assyrian cultural heritage in the production of prayer bowls.

2023 Deborah Rifenbary Memorial Undergraduate Award
Tara Falce | International Studies
Falce is being recognized for her research on the human and political crises in Syria


Rifenbary, former professor and interim dean in the College of Education and Human Sciences, dedicated her long career at UNM to promoting student success and the well-being of children and their families in New Mexico and abroad.

For the purposes of this award, “international research” comprises research in international settings, involving strong international research partnerships, or with significant, direct impacts outside of the U.S. This is the second annual faculty award, and the first year we’re honoring the international work of undergraduate and graduate students.

Each recipient receives a monetary award: faculty award, $5,000; graduate student award, $1,500; and Deborah Rifenbary Memorial Undergraduate Student Award, $1,000. The awardees will be recognized in a ceremony honoring research success during Research & Discovery Week in November.