NELC alumnus Ali Igmen recently received a generous award from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. The “International Public Service Award” recognizes of his outstanding service to young scholars of Central Eurasia. Professor Igmen has hosted many Central Eurasian scholars from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia at California State University, Long Beach. Igmen also mentors and serves on masters and doctoral committees for American and European students to study the region in CSULB and other institutions around the world.
He accepted the award in Pittsburgh at the annual conference of the International Central Eurasian Studies Society, for which Professor Igmen is the current president.
Reflecting on his time at UW, Igmen says "NELC became my home for three years teaching me various levels of Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Tajik languages, and giving me several jobs to make a living. I taught second-year Turkish, worked in the Language Laboratory to record Turkish Literature