Situated in a small, sequestered state in the Northeast, UVM draws professors from across the country and further, but a 2021 report found that only 2% of UVM’s faculty identify as international. 

Below are the voices of faculty who completed studies outside of the U.S., and details of the expertise they bring to the UVM community.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences: Felipe Machado De Sant’Anna

Machado was born and raised in Brazil, earning his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in veterinary medicine and dairy food safety at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

He came to Burlington in 2022 to pursue postdoctoral research that aligned with his previous interest in cheese microbiomes. 

“I was teaching [in Brazil], and I felt that I wanted to do research, so I applied for a postdoc position here under the supervision of Dr. John Barlow to work on understanding some of the genes that are present in the cheese making environment,” Machado said.

He drew comparisons between the two areas and their high productions of dairy. 

“The landscape of Vermont farms are pretty much similar to the landscape of my state, very small farms and the production of the cheese passed from generation to generation,” he said.

Machado became a full-time faculty member last January, after working on his postdoc with Barlow. He teaches animal anatomy and general physiology. 

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources: Mariano Rodriguez-Cabal

Rodriguez-Cabal is originally from Patagonia, Argentina. 

His educational career began with an undergraduate degree from the Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Argentina. 

He then completed his master’s degree at University of South Florida and his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee in ecology and evolutionary biology. 

He returned to Argentina with his wife Noelia Barrios-Garcia, another UVM professor, in 2013 to conduct experiments on the impacts of climate change and species loss. There they met two UVM professors who were the principal investigators of the experiment, and they encouraged the couple to come to Vermont. 

“We came here and we fell in love with Vermont. It had the same vibe that our hometown [had] in Patagonia, except that the mountains here are like hills for us,” Rodriguez-Cabal said. 

At UVM, he teaches various classes in ecology and researches invasive species and how climate change impacts blueberry production.

Funding for environmental research receives more funding in the U.S. than in Argentina, he said. 

“In Argentina, my wife and I got the second largest grant, and that is, I think, around 10 to $15,000 for three years. So not a lot,” he said. “Here, an average grant will be half a million dollars.”

He and Barrios-Garcia bring knowledge on how to do effective science research on a budget to UVM, Rodriguez-Cabal said.

“I’m a strong believer that diversity is the way to solve problems,” he said. “We need different people coming from different backgrounds, thinking of different solutions to the same problem,” 

He has enjoyed working with the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources student body, and supports that the students are able to get their hands dirty and think of big solutions, he said. 

“I think we can make the change here,” he said. “The relationship between the students and the faculty here is closer.”

College of Education and Social Services: Yatma Diop

Diop was born in Senegal, where he completed his education up to a master’s program in linguistics at Gaston Berger University.

“That’s where I really started to develop an interest in child development,” he said. “After graduation, I started to work in an evaluation of a parenting program with Stanford University.”

He then completed postdoctoral research at Lehigh University, before coming to UVM to teach in the department of counseling.  

“I wanted to be in an institution where they value research and international scholarship,” Diop said. “I think UVM has a long history of having some international collaboration.”

He teaches a seminar on cultural diversity in human development. 

“There are some cultural differences in many areas of human development, including parenting and child development,” he said. 

So far, he has liked the landscape of Vermont.

“A lot of the time I drive around and I tell myself I like this,” Diop said.

College of Arts and Sciences, department of Philosophy: Sin yee Chan

Chan has been teaching at UVM since 1993.

She was born in Hong Kong, which was a British colony at the time. She learned English early in school, along with the principles of Confucianism.  

“Graduating from high school to university is a very competitive exercise that also echoes with Confucianism,” she said. “Chinese ideas put a lot of emphasis on scholarly accomplishment and academic accomplishment.”

She completed her undergrad in history and philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, then earned two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Michigan. She then moved to Vermont to teach.

“I love Vermont. I love the department. I think there are some very good people and colleagues here who are both excellent scholars as well as teachers,” Chan said.

She has taught classes on Eastern and Western philosophy, ancient and middle period Chinese philosophy and feminism.

“I really love all the courses that I taught here,” she said.

American students tend to know little about philosophy outside of the U.S. and Europe, and that in college they learn to become global citizens through UVM’s D1 requirement, she said.

“A lot of students have not really traveled abroad,” she said. “The University requiring the diversity course really pushes the student to be engaged with the other parts of the world, to learn more about the other cultures.”

Having professors who are from other countries allows students to interact with people with different values than their own, she said. 

In her own teaching, she emphasizes close relationships with her students. 

“For students whom I come to know better, I’m not there just to make sure that they learn well; that they understand the materials,” she said. “I also want to, in a sense, take care of them.” 

College of Arts and Sciences, department of History: Boğaç Ergene

Ergene has been a professor of Middle East studies at UVM since 2001.

He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Türkiye, and later came to UVM after completing his Ph.D. at Ohio University.

His wife, Febe Armanios, is also a professor of Middle East studies at Middlebury College, he said. They visited Vermont together on a rare sunny winter day, and decided to move here to teach after applying for positions.

They later shared their research on the Middle East to co-write a book on the history of Halal food in 2018. 

He explained that American students have a lot to learn about the Middle East, and he has watched them become more engaged over the course of his teaching career.

“What I encountered among my students was their willingness to engage … their ability to get out of their own shoes to try to see things from the perspective of the culture and the peoples that they are learning about,” he said.