Events

This event is part of a two-day series focusing on sustainability in Europe and Pittsburgh.
About the Keynote Speaker:
Jesko Hirschfeld studied economics at the universities of Bonn, Frankfurt am Main, and the Free University of Berlin. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a scientific staff member for the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag), and from 1998 to 2002, he worked on his doctorate with a scholarship by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the Research Training Group “Agriculture and Environment” at the University of Göttingen. Since 2002, he has been a research associate and later subject area manager for water and land management at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) in Berlin in the research field “Environmental Economics and Policy.” From 2017 to 2020, in addition to his work at the IÖW, he was a visiting professor for landscape economics at the Technical University of Berlin. From 2022 to 2024, he taught as a visiting professor of environmental economics at Humboldt University in Berlin. He has worked on numerous inter- and transdisciplinary projects on natural climate protection, nature-based adaptation to climate change, land and water use, and integrated coastal zone management, focusing primarily on economic aspects and ecological-economic assessments. In recent years, he has focused on urban ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces, parks, and gardens.

Join the Turkish Language Table in the Global Hub to learn about Turkish language, culture, and community.
There will be four meetings in the Global Hub during Fall semester, each from 8-9 pm:
- September 17
- October 1 - Board Game Night!
- October 15
- November 12

Want to study abroad this summer? You could be selected for a scholarship of $5,000+! Learn more about the Vira I. Heinz Program for Women in Global Leadership (VIH Program) by stopping by this info session. Qualified students will be female-identifying, have a QPA of 3.0 and be a current sophomore or junior with no prior travel experience beyond Canada. Come by even if you are thinking about it for next year!

Stop by the Global Hub for a food workshop put on by the Vietnamese Student Association!

Behind the pop art icon Andy Warhol stood Julia Warhola (born Závacka), a resilient immigrant whose creativity found voice in art and songs. Far from being merely “the artist’s mother,” she embodied the hopes, memories, and identities of thousands of Slavic women who built new lives in challenging industrial conditions of Pittsburgh in the beginning of twentieth century.
The talk focuses on Julia Warhola’s artistic contributions, particularly in music. Her rare recordings of folk songs embody feelings of displacement and adaptation, linking personal experience with the broader Rusyn tradition. These songs continue to inspire contemporary artists in her rodny kraj – Carpathian Rus’, bridging cultural past and present. As Andy himself once said, his mother was “so-o-o interesting.” Recordings invites us to hear Julia Warhola in her own right: as an immigrant woman, a creative artist, and a cultural bridge across the Atlantic.
Ms. Jana Tomková is the Ruth Crawford Mitchell Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh in fall 2025. From Slovakia, Ms. Tomková is a doctoral student of Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Her research focuses on the cultural life of Carpatho-Rusyns in the Czech Republic, particularly involving music, and how it contributes to the shaping of ethnic identity. She is undertaking a comparative study of the activities of Carpatho-Rusyns in the USA, Canada, and the Czech Republic during her fellowship.

Both the United States and Germany have a long history of residential care for children, but in the last fifty years have taken different directions on policy and practice.
This lunch and learn will include global information, but will focus on how the workforce in both countries are prepared for children who require out-of-home care.
About the Speakers:
Mary Rauktis, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh
Singrid James, Dept. of Social Work and Social Welfare
University of Kassel
SIGRID JAMES, PhD, MSW is professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Welfare at the University of Kassel in Germany. She received her social work education in the United States (PhD University of Southern California, 2003; MSW UCLA, 1990) and was tenured at Loma Linda University, Department of Social Work and Social Ecology, in California, USA (2004-2016). She has completed a Fellowship in Dissemination and Implementation Research at Washington University (2010-12) and received multiple research grants in the US and in Europe. She also was the Editor-in-Chief for the peer­reviewed journal Residential Treatment/or Children and Youth (2015-2018) and was among the top 100 contributors to social work journal scholarship (Hodge & Turner, 2022). Dr. James has been writing and researching in the area of residential care for over two decades and is part of the International Workgroup on Therapeutic Residential Care. Presently, her projects are focused on cross-national comparisons of residential care.

The Global Appalachia Reading Group examines the complex intersections of regional identity, global influence, and environmental justice as they pertain to Appalachia and its connections to the wider world. The Fall 2026 theme is "Place."
Session 1 Book, September 17, 2025: Appalachia in Regional Context: Place Matters, edited by Dwight B. Billings and Ann E. Kingsolver
Session 2 Book, October 22, 2025: Affrilachia by Frank X. Walker
Session 3 Book, November 19, 2025: Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia  by Emily Hilliard
Copies of the books will be available for those planning to attend the event. Please stop by the Global Studies Center (4100 Posvar Hall) to pick up your copy. If you need the books shipped, that can be arranged.
Note: We are able to fund and distribute books to registrants as funding allows. Registration will remain open after this amount is reached. Registrants will be notified if we are unable to provide them with the reading material.

Thatiellen holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Language from UFT (Federal university of Tocantins) and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Applied Linguistics at UnB (University of Brasília). She has extensive experience teaching second languages, including Portuguese as an additional language for Indigenous communities and non-Brazilian learners. Thatiellen has also worked with minority communities in Brazil, teaching English to young Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. She is currently serving as a Portuguese FLTA through the Fulbright Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Ruth Jimenez Nina is a Quechua linguist, researcher and a quechua activist from Bolivia. She holds a Master's in Indoamerican Linguistics from CIESAS México and studied Applied Linguistics to Language Teaching at San Simon University, where she has also taught since 2023. She has been a member of the Indigenous Research Center Taki Unquy in Cochabamba since 2019. Her work centers on sociolinguistics, language acquisition and teaching and anthropological linguistics. She has published academic and opinion papers in Bolivia and México.
In 2020 she was the recipient of the French Institute of Andean Studies' Young Researcher Support Grant to study Bolivian quechua evidentiality. She also contributed as a linguist to the Simi Project (the first Bolivian Quechua App launched in 2024).
She is currently a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant for the Quechua Program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Practice Hindi and play games with the Less-Commonly-Taught-Languages Center and students! No knowledge of Hindi required.
There will be three meetings in the Global Hub during Fall semester, each from 5-6 pm:
- September 25
- October 23
- November 20