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A stereotype in the global education sector is that it’s especially difficult for students in STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—to study abroad. Syracuse Abroad combats this thinking through special partnerships allowing STEM students to explore their fields in a range of countries, with access to cutting-edge laboratories and transformative experiential learning activities.

The University’s international STEM opportunities range from a special program for aerospace, bio, civil, computer, electrical, environmental and mechanical  to internships at the Istituto di Neuroscienze of Italy’s National Research Council through the .

Coding With Scottish Schoolchildren

In February, computer engineering major Hassatou Bah ’28 traveled with a delegation from the London Center to visit Lockerbie, Scotland, the site of the Pan Am Flight 103 Air Disaster in 1988. With support from the Kim and Michael Venutolo ’77 Fund for Experiential Learning, students studying abroad in London are invited to participate in a special Remembrance Exchange weekend each semester.

Remembrance resonates with Bah because of her family’s experience and sacrifice. “My family crossed an ocean to give me opportunities they never had. The students who were lost were crossing an ocean for an education. Like me, they held hopes for what Syracuse could help them become,” she says.

While in Scotland, Bah “paid it forward” with younger students. Lockerbie Academy hosted more than 100 P7 pupils (the Scottish equivalent of sixth graders) for a special transition day designed to give them a sense of what studying in secondary school would be like. Syracuse London students were asked to lead workshops for the transitioning pupils, with a special request for a session about computer coding.

During an hour-long workshop (which they delivered four times in a row for different groups), Bah and a classmate highlighted women who have contributed to the development of computers, such as Ada Lovelace and Katherine Johnson. They taught the basics of HTML and guided pupils in a hands-on activity to develop their own code to display and graphically transform their names on a website.

“As an engineer, I’m drawn to building. But what Syracuse and Lockerbie have built together is far greater than any system: it is a bridge of memory, compassion and human resilience,” Bah says.

Understanding Holistic Healthcare

In summer 2024, teaching professor Lisa Olson-Gugerty from the Maxwell School’s public health department travelled to the UK for a special section of “Understanding Health Systems: Macro and Micro Perspectives” (PHP 306), which examined differences between the U.S., UK and Europe in how public health is managed, how health science is funded and how healthcare is delivered.

Syracuse Abroad Global Ambassador Tommy DaSilva ’26, a student in the course, was blown away by the UK’s centralized health system, and credits Olson-Gugerty for providing “more global insight that I can take with me into a future of federal policymaking.”

That summer, DaSilva also took the “Green Britain: Science, Devolution and Climate Controversies in the UK” traveling class, through which he had the opportunity to visit the Welsh Parliament (Senedd). The Senedd has been a leading political body for investment in climate justice and science-led environmental management, as well as inclusive healthcare. The course’s field studies in Cornwall highlighted the interactions between marine conservation projects like the UK’s  and planetary health.

After a summer abroad, DaSilva returned to campus as a 2024-26 Lender Student Fellow, which provided the opportunity to see how lessons from their experiences abroad could improve the social determinants of health for vulnerable groups, especially in relation to housing.

Engineering Sustainable Communities 

In spring 2019, Anna Feldman ’21 spent a semester in Florence with Syracuse Abroad’s Engineering program. A year later, she was named a Udall Scholar for her dedication to pursuing environmental work.

Feldman’s community engagement included teaching young teenagers about water chemistry in Onondaga Lake, sharing her love for physics with local Syracuse pupils and helping kids at the Museum of Natural History learn to work with microscopes. She also contributed to a project on micropollutants in Kampala, Uganda, co-authoring a paper published in . Today, she works on stormwater resiliency and green infrastructure projects as a water resources engineer in New York City.

“I build hydrologic and hydraulic models to visualize the impacts of extreme storms on our natural and built environment,” says Feldman. She credits much of her interest in water resources to , professor of practice in civil and environmental engineering and an expert in urban stormwater management and smart sensing “whose notes on closed pipe flow I still use on the daily,” Feldman says.

Allyson Greenberg ’22, another alumna of the Syracuse Florence

Engineering program, was part of the spring 2020 class whose time in Italy was cut short by COVID-19. Despite her hasty departure, Greenberg has some great memories from her time abroad, including time spent in the Arctic Circle while on a traveling seminar about sustainability in Northern Europe. She went on to graduate with a BS in environmental engineering and an .

After graduating, Greenberg began working as a sustainable energy consultant. The role gave her insight into the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program, measuring and mitigating agricultural emissions, and the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings initiative, among others. The wide range of projects that she’d been exposed to allowed her to focus her interests, and this year she began a new job managing a program reducing residential greenhouse gases in Maryland.

Story by Becca Farnum