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View from the top: Dr C Dianne Martin, George Washington University
Most recently I have been teaching in the Internet policy area and since the Internet is both global and borderless, international students often have very different perspectives on issues such as regulation, intellectual property, cybercrime, and free speech. It is very exciting to engage students from many different backgrounds in these discussions.�
There is no doubt that Dr Martin�s experience of teaching and supporting international students has been a very positive one: �I recall when I had several students from Korea in my graduate multimedia class. Well-known as an artistic design capitol, these students from Seoul brought excellent design skills to their multimedia projects that were different from other students. In fact, one of them did a dissertation on the role of aesthetics in multimedia � something we�d never seen before.� Interestingly, Dr Martin�s engagement with international students took a different direction when, in 2005, she took a leave of absence from GWU to be Dean of the College of Information Technology at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates, founded to prepare Emirati women for leadership positions in the country.
Always open to new ideas, Dr Martin continues to value the contributions students from other countries make to the programs she teaches on.
Always open to new ideas, Dr Martin continues to value the contributions students from other countries make to the programs she teaches on: �In my Internet Policy course, students from India and China help raise awareness about how issues such as the digital divide are having a particular impact in their countries. Having multiple points of view on complex issues helps everyone, including the teacher, to learn more about the subject and get more out of the program.�
Staff are involved in a range of large research projects, many of which offer funding to qualified international students.
To that end the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has sought to encourage more international students to come to GWU over the last few years to contribute to the teaching and research programs at the graduate level. Staff are involved in a range of large research projects, many of which offer funding to qualified international students. Dr Martin regards this aspect of internationalization as being particularly positive: �Right now international students are being funded for research in bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, medical imaging, nanotechnology, networking, software engineering, environmental engineering, structural engineering, RFID sensors and sensor networks, and high performance computing, just to name a few. Our international make-up is really important.�
As someone who has experience of both the private and public sectors, Dr Martin appreciates the importance of relating graduate programs to employment after graduation for local and international students alike. She sees the masters and PhD degrees that GWU offers as excellent pathways to a range of careers: �Because of GWU�s location in Washington, DC, which is an engineering and high tech hub, we have many interactions with local companies in all areas of engineering and computing. Many of these companies are willing to sponsor international students for their practical training year as well as to sponsor them for H1-B visas. We also have a number of our students do their practical training or find jobs at the World Bank, which is a next door neighbor of the university.�
With such a breadth of experience, Dr Martin is a popular professor amongst GWU�s international masters and PhD students. Perhaps you should consider studying with her.
