Naoko Muramatsu receives 2025-26 Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Award
Professor Muramatsu receives 2025 Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Award
2025 Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Award
About the Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Awards
The University of Illinois Chicago’s internationalization vision is “to serve the citizens of Chicago and the world by being an international leader in research, scholarship, creative activity, and innovation, and by creating a globally connected campus community which supports faculty, staff, and students as they address the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.”
By presenting the Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Award, UIC recognizes faculty members who have made outstanding contributions to UIC’s global engagement. Beyond the examples of global engagement specifically listed in the selection criteria, the award seeks to recognize those faculty whose contributions have been made beyond their essential responsibilities as a faculty member. In addition, the award seeks to recognize contributions to global engagement that have a significant impact on students’ development.
The Office of Global Engagement is pleased to announce the 2025-26 recipient of the Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi Global Engagement Faculty Award, as well as a much-deserved honorable mention.
2025-26 Award Recipient
Dr. Naoko Muramatsu
Professor | Founding Co-Director of the Center for Health in Cognitive Aging (CHECA)
Dr. Naoko Muramatsu is a professor in the Division of Community Health Sciences at the UIC School of Public Health and a Founding Co-Director of the Center for Health in Cognitive Aging (CHECA). Trained in social sciences and healthcare organization and policy research, Dr. Muramatsu investigates aging and health in individual, organizational, and societal contexts with the goal of improving the quality of life, work, and services locally and globally. Her passion for global engagement has permeated her life and academic career, driven by her curiosity, commitment to continuous quality improvement, and concerns for what matters in quality improvement: world peace and systems that continuously minimize unwanted variability.
Dr. Muramatsu has created and enriched global learning opportunities for UIC students, staff, and faculty through her boundary-spanning activities and leadership for the past thirty years. Since 2024, Dr. Muramatsu has led the efforts to develop UIC’s partnership with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSBI), Bielefeld, Germany, in close collaboration with UIC and HSBI faculty and early-career scientists from various disciplines (e.g., public health, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, economics, business, and applied health sciences). Aiming to sustain and enrich this burgeoning collaboration with the UIC-HSBI team, Dr. Muramatsu and the team are actively preparing a series of grant applications. These efforts are part of Dr. Muramatsu’s sabbatical project, which focuses on enriching the research infrastructure for promoting care work in super-aging societies, including Germany, Japan, and the United States.
Dr. Muramatsu has also recently contributed to other UIC internationalization initiatives, such as Brasillinois as a presenter to the FIOCRUZ-Brasillinois delegation to UIC in May 2024 and for the Workshop on Aging and Related Diseases held at FIOCRUZ, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in May 2025. In addition, she participated in the University of Illinois System Mexican and Mexican-American Students initiative (I-MMAS) as a panel member and a closing speaker for the Healthy Aging Symposium in December 2024.
These recent activities build on Dr. Muramatsu’s long-term global engagement activities for various organizations, including Chicago Sister City International (as a member of the Shanghai Social Service Committee) and the Ryman Prize (as a juror), and lived experiences as a long-distance care provider/coordinator for her 91-year-old mother in Japan. As the home of the world’s oldest population, Japan precedes other countries in experiencing a super-aging society. Dr. Muramatsu’s publications and ongoing collaboration with Japanese colleagues document long-term care policies and key measures of health and well-being of older adults and their caregivers. Dr. Muramatsu’s global engagement activities continue to inspire and sustain her research, teaching, and service at UIC.
2025-26 Honorable Mention
Dr. Rohan D. Jeremiah
Professor | Associate Dean for Global Health | Medical Anthropologist & Global Public Health Scholar
Dr. Rohan D. Jeremiah is a global health scholar, applied medical anthropologist, and public health leader whose research lies at the intersections of culture, health, and healing. He serves as Professor of Human Development Nursing Science and Associate Dean for Global Health at the University of Illinois Chicago, College of Nursing. He is also a faculty affiliate at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and the WHO Collaborating Centre in Primary Health Care.
Dr. Jeremiah’s research and service focus on dismantling structural barriers to health, especially those related to trauma, substance use, gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS, and global cancer disparities. He is the Principal Investigator of several NIH-funded projects, including SHARED, which promotes lung cancer screening among African American men. He also co-leads global health workforce development initiatives and consults for ministries of health, UN agencies, and NGOs.
With over two decades of experience across the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Dr. Jeremiah has worked in more than a dozen countries and led programs supported by PEPFAR, USAID, and the Inter-American Development Bank. As a former U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon and South Africa, he brings deep community engagement to his work.
A respected educator and mentor, Dr. Jeremiah is widely published and frequently invited to speak on health equity, culturally responsive care, and global health systems. He has presented at over 20 universities and served on thesis and dissertation committees in Thailand, Canada, South Africa, Grenada, and Brazil. He also facilitates training for the U.S. State Department and the Fulbright Commission. In 2025, he was appointed to Governor JB Pritzker’s inaugural Illinois Global Health Advisory Coalition.
Dr. Jeremiah is committed to building inclusive, resilient, and people-centered health systems that honor cultural knowledge, foster collective healing, and advance global health equity.