Awards & Recognitions
The International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) is the only international organization whose primary purpose is to cultivate, encourage, and present research across all engagement forms and educational levels. IARSLCE connects scholars around the world to advance knowledge on service-learning and community engagement.
In recognition of exemplary contributions through research on service-learning and community engagement, IARSLCE honors those whose research contributes significantly to understanding and advancing community engagement, across all approaches and all educational sectors. We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 awards.
For more information about our awards and past recipients, click here.
Distinguished Career Award: Roger N. Reeb
Early Career Award: Carmine Perrotti
Carmine Perrotti is an Assistant Professor of Public and Community Service Studies and Director of the Neighborly Engagement Research Lab (NERLab) at Providence College, where he is also an alumnus. His teaching and research explore critical questions at the intersections of the philosophy, pedagogy, and practice of service learning and community engagement in U.S. higher education. Grounded in principles of participatory and community-engaged research, his work centers the voices and experiences of students and community members as co-researchers and co-creators of knowledge. He examines how colleges and universities can cultivate more equitable and reciprocal community-campus relationships.
Carmine holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a Master of Public Policy from American University. Before pursuing his doctorate, Carmine held several political appointments in the Obama-Biden Administration, primarily in the Office of the Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, where he worked on a range of higher education policy issues.
International Research Award: Nicole Webster
Nicole Webster, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Faculty Affairs in the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University. Her scholarship and teaching incorporate facets of youth development, civic engagement, and equity in public spaces, specifically in relation to historically marginalized youth in domestic and international settings. In addition to her work in formal academic settings, she has designed, facilitated, and evaluated national and international training focused on equity and inclusion in civic educational spaces.
Publication of the Year Award: JCES Special Issue: Immigration and Immigrant Community Engagement: Democracy Realized through Immigrant Integration of the Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship
Dissertation Award: Shilohna Phillanders
Dr. Shilohna Phillanders is an internationally recognized educator, practitioner-scholar, and educational consultant whose work centers on service-learning, critical pedagogy, and socially responsive community engagement. Grounded in a commitment to social justice, her research and practice center on empowering learners and educators to interrogate and transform systemic inequities through experiential and community-rooted approaches. Guided by her commitment to equity and empowerment, Dr. Phillanders is laying the groundwork for a consultancy initiative that supports educators in emergent regions like the Caribbean, in embedding justice-centered, community-rooted pedagogies into transformative teaching and learning practices.
Dr. Phillanders holds a PhD in International Comparative Education from Beijing Normal University, China, and earned both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in International Relations and Global Affairs, respectively from The University of the West Indies. She also holds professional certification in NGO Professional Management, equipping her with cross-sectoral insight into community-based organizational leadership.
Community Outcomes and Impact Award: Ashley Westaway
Ashley Westaway is the Manager of GADRA Education, based in Makhanda, South Africa. He is highly respected in the development sector, having previously managed the Border Rural Committee, a successful rural development organisation based in East London, for over a decade. He has won numerous awards, from the South African NGO Coalition (Katlego), Impumelelo (South Africa’s leading social innovation programme) and the United Nations Development Programme, amongst others. In 2010, he was invited into the international network of Ashoka Fellows. He has an outstanding educational pedigree; he holds a PhD in History from Fort Hare and obtained his MA and PGCE from Rhodes University, both with Distinction.
Since being appointed Manager of GADRA Education in late 2011, he has repositioned and revitalised the organisation. His most notable accomplishments in this regard have been to establish the GADRA Matric School as Rhodes University’s largest feeder school and biggest producer of graduates, and to co-lead a multi-stakeholder, city-wide improvement in public education. He is actively involved with Rhodes University in various capacities, including being a Council member, a Research Associate and Co-Manager of the VC’s Initiative to Revitalise Public Schooling in Makhanda.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award: Imandeep Kaur Grewal
Dr. Imandeep Kaur Grewal, ਡਰ. ਅਮਨਦੀਪ ਕੌਰ ਗਰੇਵਾਲ, is a distinguished scholar and educator with a steadfast commitment to justice, joy, healing, and liberation. Dr. Grewal actively resists dichotomies and thrives in the hyphenated spaces between research-teaching-practice-learning-scholarship-healing-and living. In these intersectional spaces, Dr. Grewal has dedicated her life to empowering herself and others to live a life they value and have reason to value.
Dr. Grewal serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education, Director of the Office for Place-Based Education at Eastern Michigan University. As a practitioner-scholar Dr. Grewal has established several key programs including: Sikhya: Strengthening the Voices and Choices of Girls Through Education which provides wrap-around mentoring and financial support to girls as they exit poverty and reclaim their ability to make essential choice in their lives. She has written and produced an hour-long documentary titled "Bridge Over Destiny" on the importance of education in the lives of girls living in poverty in India. Based on her collaborative mentoring model, Dr. Grewal created and directs the NEXT Scholars program, a place-based program designed to increase the recruitment, retention, and success of students from historically marginalized communities into teaching. In addition, she has designed and oversees the Hope Partners program which radically redesigns the student-teaching experience for students from historically marginalized communities to be a long-term, mentoring and identity-based learning experience.
Public Scholarship Award: Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem
Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem (she/her) is an educator, researcher, writer, and activist. Currently, she works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University in Massachusetts, United States. She will serve as a Civic Engagement and Voting Rights Teacher-Scholar Fellow at Clemson University during the academic year 2025-26 and work collaboratively to develop civic engagement-focused open source teaching materials. Nafisa’s research and teaching interests include transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms; critical race theory; globalization and feminist politics; critical community engagement; critical university studies; and transnational social justice movements with a specific focus on the United States and South Asia. Nafisa has been actively involved in community organizing and social justice activism. She is an organizer of the Meye (“Woman” in Bangla) network and the Feminist Alliance of Bangladesh – both of whom are voluntary, grassroots, and organic networks advocating for feminist solidarity and organizing in Bangladesh. Her public scholarship has been published on many local and international platforms, such as Common Dreams, Jamhoor, the Daily Star, New Age, Prothom Alo, Thotkata, and Bama.
Congratulations to the recipients of the IARSLCE awards. Thank you to all of the nominators and to the association members who participated in the review process to determine this year's recipients. Recipients will be honored in a celebration during the IARSLCE Conference in Durban in August 2025. Please join IARSLCE and learn more about upcoming events and opportunities offered by the association.