International students honored with Centennial Achievement Awards
Nine University of Arizona students were honored Tuesday with Centennial Achievement Awards for their perseverance and leadership in the pursuit of academic success. This year's recipients include two undergraduates and seven graduate students.
Undergraduate awardees receive a $250 stipend, while graduate awardees receive $500. All awardees receive an engraved plaque.
"I have always held the success of our students, the experiences we provide them, and the opportunities we create for them as our North Star, our main focus," said University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella. "We wouldn't be a university if we weren't focused on our students."
Two international students received awards this year.
2024 Centennial Achievement Masters Award
Rodrigo Guerra Su is a second-year master's student in the Applied Economics and Policy Analysis program at the University of Arizona. His journey to higher education has been marked by resilience and adaptability. Originally from Managua, Nicaragua, Rodrigo grew up in a country with widespread poverty and political instability, encountering numerous challenges in pursuing his education.
In 2019, Rodrigo moved to the United States to continue his studies at Glendale Community College in California, overcoming language barriers by immersing himself in English media. In August 2020, during the pandemic, he transferred to the University of Arizona, initially majoring in animal sciences but soon discovering a passion that prompted him to switch to agribusiness economics and management.
Graduating summa cum laude, Rodrigo is the first in his family to study abroad and earn a degree from a U.S. institution. His commitment to education is evident through his roles as a peer tutor at the Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques, or SALT, Center, and as a research intern in the Applied International Development Economics Lab, which inspired him to pursue his master's degree. Rodrigo also served as a teaching assistant, supporting students in challenging courses such as Economics of Futures Markets, Analysis of Economic Data and the graduate-level Math for Economists.
His research contributions include projects focused on agricultural productivity, climate adaptation, and economic analysis. He collaborated on a literature review on the economics of climate adaptation, and worked on projects with University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, including an economic impact analysis of the horse racing industry in Arizona.
After completing his master's program, Rodrigo plans to further his studies in agricultural economics, aspiring to contribute to large-scale research that shapes policies and promotes sustainable practices.
2024 Centennial Achievement Doctorate Degree Award
Asya Gorlova is a doctoral candidate in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Graduate Interdisciplinary Program. Originally from Saint Petersburg, Russia, where she grew up in a family of four daughters, Asya is the first in her family to venture abroad and pursue an advanced degree.
During her time at the university, Asya taught in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, where she received the College of Humanities Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. She is currently a graduate assistant in Postdoctoral Affairs, supporting postdoctoral scholars across campus.
Asya's research focuses on refugee language education and anti-oppressive, asset-based language pedagogies. Her dissertation explores the role of language learning in refugee resettlement policies and investigates teacher knowledge, perspectives and professional development needs in community-based language programs. Additionally, she participates in collaborative research projects on campus. Asya works with her research partner Angus Leydic on a study examining LGBTQAI+ students' perspectives on language learning materials. She is also an active member of the MACAWS (Multilingual Academic Corpus of Assignments: Writing and Speech) team led by Dr. Shelley Staples, which develops corpus-informed learning resources for Russian and Portuguese language learners and investigates students' and teachers' experiences with corpus-based pedagogies.
Her interest in refugee education is closely tied to her volunteer experiences as a program coordinator with Tutors4Ukraine (2022-2024), a nonprofit organization that provided English language classes for Ukrainian refugees. She also volunteers as an English language teacher with Literacy Connects in Tucson.
After completing her doctorate, Asya plans to pursue a career in educational research in academia, refugee nonprofits or other educational organizations. She hopes to advance holistic research that informs equitable and effective teaching practices, benefiting various student populations and the educators who work with them.
Read more about all the 2024 Centennial Achievement Award recipients on news.arizona.edu.
Read more about the undergraduate honorees, master's student honorees and doctoral student honorees on the Dean of Students website.