Fulbright Scholar Awards are prestigious fellowships that offer scholars transformative opportunities to teach and conduct research abroad while strengthening their professional development and fostering long‑term connections that enrich their careers, campuses and communities.

As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Sawin will teach and conduct research at Middlesex University in Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean that is rapidly developing as a regional technology and innovation hub.

Working with the School of Science and Technology at Middlesex, Sawin will teach courses in areas such as programming, software development, databases and computer systems while collaborating with faculty on curriculum development and student engagement in computing disciplines.

Sawin also plans to explore research questions related to AI-assisted software development, with a particular interest in how applications created with modern AI coding tools perform in mobile environments. Working with faculty and students, he hopes to examine issues such as efficiency, reliability and usability in applications relevant to Mauritius, including mobile banking, e-government and e-commerce systems.

Sawin's project will strengthen academic and research partnerships between Middlesex University Mauritius and the University of St. Thomas, while contributing to ongoing discussions about the opportunities and limitations of emerging AI technologies in software development.

University of St. Thomas President Rob Vischer recently wrote an op-ed for Religion News Service about the importance of preserving human connection as artificial intelligence becomes more common in higher education and society.

In the piece, Vischer reflected on commencement ceremonies, the value of knowing students by name, and the responsibility universities have to prepare graduates for an AI-driven world while still emphasizing relationships, reflection and human dignity.

Below is his full op-ed, as featured in Religion News Service:

One of the greatest privileges I enjoy as a university president is looking directly into the eyes of new graduates as they cross the stage in our commencement ceremonies. This year had a twist: Given recent news stories about universities using artificial intelligence to announce graduates’ names, I made a point to reassure the audiences an actual human would do the honors.

And at each ceremony, that announcement brought loud cheers.

Yes, we love our technology today, but we also still yearn for authentic human connection. If we don’t provide it, our institutions risk becoming transactional degree factories where students become dehumanized.

The day after our final ceremony, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” This writing carries critical implications not just for Catholic higher education, but for all educators. While many of the insights are worth highlighting, Pope Leo could not have been clearer about the path forward: “Let us cultivate relationships.”

Colleges and universities must always strive to provide a return on investment for the thousands of students and families paying hard-earned money for a degree. But they must never lose sight that teaching students to cultivate relationships is the greatest value for taking those degrees and making a true difference in the world.

Universities are essential to avoiding the “Babel syndrome” referenced in the encyclical. That, of course, is a reference to the biblical story of the “Tower of Babel,” in which the people embarked on an ill-fated project to make a name for themselves by building a tower that would reach the heavens. The result was not unity, but confusion and separation. Leo calls on educators to not make the same mistake of believing a single, digital language (like AI) can “translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.”

For educators, this means we are obligated to pursue the integration of knowledge and equip our students with the ability to grasp complexity and the skills to verify facts. These are precisely the skills our graduates will need to ensure that the organizations for which they ultimately work (and eventually lead) bring benefit to the communities they aim to serve. Are we equipping our students with media literacy? And positioning them to build trust across our algorithm-driven silos? And helping them develop an ethical lens that will guide their deployment of new technologies?

Higher education, however, should always aim to provide more than knowledge and skills. That is why providing space for reflection, discernment and appreciation is just as critical as building skillsets and knowledge, as this is what allows them to find true direction in their lives.

Are we offering them resources to build not just a good career, but a meaningful life? Can they identify the core purpose that drives them forward? Can they articulate why they matter in terms that are not contingent on their external achievements?

Today’s graduates may not know exactly how their worlds will look 10 years from now given the magnitude of looming technological changes, but having that true direction can help them navigate those changes. As educators, that is how we can best prepare them to flourish.

Yes, our institutions must teach students how to succeed in the emerging world of AI, but a core piece of that instruction means helping them understand that AI is not a substitute for human relationships. Pope Leo warns that as more emphasis is placed on “speed and fragmentation, the human person still yearns to receive care and recognition from attentive minds, kind words and hands capable of tenderness.”

And sometimes that tenderness comes from the simple act of reading a name. At my university, we like to say our professors know amazing things — like their students’ names. That amazing knowledge may be more important than ever in the new, uncertain AI era.

University of St. Thomas Professor Manjeet Rege recently spoke with FOX 9 about the use of AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising. Rege is chair of the Department of Software Engineering and Data Science and director of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.

In the segment, Rege explained how deepfake technology works and demonstrated several AI-generated versions of himself speaking languages he does not know.

From the story:

“When you take deep learning technology, apply that to image or video data and create content, the content that gets created is fake and looks realistic. But because it is created using deep learning, it is called deepfakes,” Rege said.

“All of these examples you’re seeing are my deepfake versions,” Rege said. “In some of them, I’m speaking languages I do not speak, like Chinese and French. They ask you to record 30 seconds. Then, based on that 30 seconds, it is going to extrapolate how that person would react to different situations.”

Potter will redesign a Spanish-language section of an introductory theology course by partnering with Bendita Mezcla, grassroots formation program in Latin America and the Caribbean. Students will engage in a study of liberation theology and the narrative and artistic traditions of the Americas to explore vocation.

The project will document and translate these practices for U.S. classrooms and produce conference presentations at the Annual Colloquium of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States and a submitted article for publication.

Beginning with elective requirements, Strommer started classes at what was the College of St. Thomas in the fall of 1972. "I didn't apply myself very much," he said. "I tried to look inconspicuous, sitting in the back of the classroom so the professors wouldn't see me."

In those first years, Strommer realized he lacked inspiration for what he thought was a clear path to earning a business degree. He took a chance on an art class at the College of St. Catherine's and finally felt he was on the right track. Through the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities cross-registration program, he completed courses at St. Kate's, Macalester, Hamline and Augsburg.

His love for art, particularly photography, propelled him through his college years; however, he dreaded his final year because he feared not having a strong enough portfolio for his senior capstone art show. 

In early spring of 1976, Strommer, with just six credits left to complete at St. Thomas, ventured full-time at a job opportunity he started around Christmas his senior year. The timing felt impossible to ignore. What he thought would be a temporary pause stretched into decades.

“I was so close,” Strommer said. “I always thought eventually I’d get back and finish.” 

Life, however, had other plans.

Strommer built a successful career, moving from Minnesota to Florida, Georgia and eventually Pennsylvania. He rose through the ranks of the rental industry, managed major operations, spoke on a national level, and became president of the Minnesota Rental Association, spearheading the new emerging business opportunities in the special events equipment industry. Yet even as his professional life flourished, the unfinished degree quietly stayed with him.

“It haunted me,” Strommer said. “I felt like I had unfinished business.” 

For years, he avoided calls from the St. Thomas Engagement Center. The diploma he never earned remained a deeply personal disappointment — especially because of what it meant to his family. 

Raised in the Rice Street neighborhood of St. Paul, Strommer grew up in a Catholic household rooted in the traditions of St. Bernard's Parish. he served as an altar boy before Mass transitioned from Latin to English, sang in the choir and once considered becoming a priest. His father, a contractor who lived with cerebral palsy, taught him resilience and compassion. His mother, who had been raised Lutheran before marrying into a strict Catholic family, dreamed of seeing her son become the first in the family to earn a college degree.

“It broke my mother’s heart when I dropped out,” Strommer said. “I would have been the only child with a college degree.” 

By 2010, after decades of considering a return to college, Strommer found himself at another crossroads. Encouraged by his wife, Lucy, he decided it was finally time.

“I said maybe I’ll take one class now and one later,” Strommer recalled. “And Lucy said, ‘No, you’re taking both now. Get it done.’” 

The decision to follow his wife's advice changed everything. 

Serendipity was in play when Strommer reconnected with St. Thomas and met Dr. Michael Jordan. Jordan, in his St. Thomas roles as a professor of English beginning in 1982 and then as associate vice provost for undergraduate studies from 2005-2015, had an innate desire to forward academic excellence.

Karen Lange, vice president for Student Affairs, noted Jordan was an academic through and through.

“He believed in the importance of a liberal arts education and in the value of expanding your mind to be the best person you can be,” she said. “Leading with integrity, kindness and sincerity, Dr. Jordan was a brilliant man who put in the time to make sure students had the best experience.”

Jordan carefully reviewed Strommer's transcript history and helped Strommer chart a path to graduation. Jordan worked with academic counselors and the Committee on Studies to permit Strommer to graduate under the 1972 course catalog requirement if he completed just six remaining credits.

“I’m sure Marty getting his degree was very important to Dr. Jordan,” Lange said. “He would put in the time for students because he cared so deeply about the student experience – even one that spans years.”

For Strommer, Jordan’s guidance was transformational.

“I was really fortunate to connect with Dr. Jordan,” he said. “He made it happen.”

Jordan encouraged Strommer to take transferable courses wherever it worked best for him. With his East Coast address, Strommer enrolled in night classes at Wilmington University in Delaware while continuing his work. More than three decades after leaving campus, he found himself back in the classroom alongside students young enough to be his grandchildren.

This time, though, he approached school differently. 

“If I had to do it over again, it would’ve been a straight-A deal,” Strommer said. “I just appreciated it more.” 

After successfully completing the final credits, Strommer mailed his transcripts back to St. Thomas. On a later visit to Minnesota for a family wedding, he arranged to meet Jordan in person.

“I wanted to shake his hand,” Strommer said. “I told him, ‘God rest my mother’s soul — she passed away before I graduated. But I know she knows I did this.’”

Jordan responded with a joke Strommer still laughs about today.

“He said, ‘You did really good in those transfer classes. Too bad you didn’t do as well when you were here,’” Strommer recalled.

Realizing the Goal  

In 2011, Strommer officially earned his degree in art history from the University of St. Thomas — 35 years after he was originally expected to graduate.

That same year, his nephew, Father Paul Strommer, also graduated from St. Thomas, earning his undergraduate degree in philosophy while in formation at St. John Vianney College Seminary.

Noting his Uncle Marty’s contagious sense of humor, Father Paul recalled he and Strommer joking about walking in a commencement ceremony together.

“We didn’t walk,” Father Paul said. “But at some point we could reunion together. This year is 15 years since graduating – it is a sort of symbolic reunion.” 

Though Strommer didn't participate in a commencement ceremony, receiving his diploma marked something profound.

“When it arrived, I bought the fanciest frame I could find and hung it on the wall,” he said.  

His uncle's unconventional path to his degree reminded Father Paul of a quote from Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

"Mother Theresa spoke about 'letting God write straight with crooked lines,'" he said. "Even if our story has delayed or unexpected turns, we can always complete our journey and reach a destination. We can continue moving toward the finish line and eventually cross it."

Strommer's experience also transformed his relationship with St. Thomas and his mindset on giving back. 

“For 35 years, I never donated,” he said. “But once I got the diploma, I finally felt like I belonged. I felt like I was part of the St. Thomas alumni family.” 

Today, Strommer gives regularly to support scholarships and students, inspired by the same spirit of generosity that shaped his Catholic upbringing. 

“I firmly believe that whatever you give comes back to you,” he said. 

He points to moments throughout his life that reinforce this belief: opportunities, friendships and unexpected blessings that arrived after acts of generosity. But his giving philosophy is rooted less in transactions and more in gratitude.

“My gifts help students who can’t afford it,” Strommer said. “And those students calling alumni — they deserve kindness, too.” 

Now retired, Strommer continues looking for ways to serve others. Recently, he signed up to volunteer with the American Red Cross disaster response team, helping transport supplies during emergencies. 

For him, service, faith and generosity are inseparable, and he recognizes that life is something we do together. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” he said. “And be true to yourself. Remember that you’ll get back tenfold what you give.”

The St. Thomas men's basketball will take on the Gophers at "The Barn" on Friday, Nov. 6, while the women will square off on Dec. 1. Tipoff times will be announced at a later date.

The first Division I era meeting between the programs will be their eighth all-time match up. The Tommies and Gophers last met Dec.. 11, 1934, according to available records. The previous seven meetings occurred at Minnesota. St. Thomas won the game that occurred on Dec. 16, 1933.

This will be the first-ever meeting between the Tommies and Gophers women's basketball programs, according to available records dating back to 1981. St. Thomas female student-athletes were first admitted to campus in 1977 and began competition that same season.

From The Guardian:
John P. Abraham, professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, and co-author of the research paper, described the U.S. administration’s move to dismantle the $368m OOI system as “penny-wise, pound foolish.”

“The U.S. government wants to save less than a billion in sensors, which are the eyes and ears of the ocean” said Abraham. “We have hundreds of billions in climate costs per year. The cost of the observation system is a fraction of the climate costs from hurricanes and storms that hit the U.S.”

From Discover Magazine:
To better understand the impacts of rising sea levels, scientists must understand the factors driving their rise. A new study, published in Science Advances, has conducted a detailed analysis of the causes of rising sea levels over the last 60 years. Previous studies had found some of the contributors hard to pin down, but the new research may have helped solve this long-standing climate-science mystery.

“For years, there has been a frustrating gap between how much the oceans were observed to be rising and how much we could explain from the individual causes. This work shows that, with better instruments, processes, and smarter analysis, this knowledge gap can be closed. We can explain sea level rise with greater confidence,” said John Abraham, a mechanical engineer at the University of St. Thomas and co-author of the new study, in a statement.

From Science Alert:
The researchers credit advances in data collection technology and analysis methods for being able to properly balance the GMSL. For example, higher-resolution satellite imagery has improved estimates of the extent of glacier melt worldwide.

“Although previous studies closed the GMSL budget, their results diverge owing to different dataset choices,” write the researchers in their published paper.

“The up-to-date community estimates reconcile differences among multiple estimate methods, mitigate the random errors induced by a single source, and reduce the differences from the dataset choice.”

From New Scientist:
“We’re flying blind, and it will end up costing us more,” says John Abraham at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

While the OOI costs $56 million a year to run, the US commercial fishing industry, which relies in part on OOI data, generates billions of dollars each year. Weather and climate disasters did $183 billion of damage in 2024. (The US government discontinued this tally in 2025.)

Without the OOI, fleets won’t know which fishing areas might be less impacted by the coming El Niño, which some models say could be the strongest on record. ...

From the conversation:
Clay Masters: You said that you’ve been going to the Boundary Waters since you were a kid. What have you noticed about the landscape that’s changed, or has it?

Ling: I think there was a big blowdown and some fires happening, but overall I feel like the whole feel up there hasn’t changed a ton. It feels like there were more people that came up, maybe after COVID, as people were spending more time outside, but generally, you’re sitting at a campsite making s’mores or whatever, I feel like it feels pretty similar now to what it did in the past, and I think that’s part of the magic.

Masters: And you feel that that magic would not be affected by mining in the area, that it would continue to be like that for generations to come is how you’re seeing it.

Ling: I think we certainly have the engineering and the permitting capabilities here in Minnesota to operate mines in that watershed without negative effects to the Boundary Waters, but if we had fewer regulations for this kind of thing and permitting in the state, then it would be a different conversation.

I think if we were permitting this type of mine in this type of watershed in a different state with less stringent regulations, I think it would be different. But Minnesota is pretty great with our environmental permitting and regulations. People here in the state are excited about water, we’re excited about the environment, and I think that really drives our regulatory agencies to put that into their action in what they’re doing in managing environment in the state.

From the conversation:
Abraham: “People are waking up to how transformative this technology is and there’s pros and there’s cons, and we really need to think about how to navigate the pathway forward so that we can reap the benefits of AI but don’t get the negative consequences.” 

Courtney Godfrey: “Right, harness it for good. So, talk to me about this latest executive order. What was its goal?”

Abraham: “..Now, it’s hard to know the ultimate goal because this is voluntary, and there isn’t a stipulation about what would happen if an AI model was flagged as a concern. But we at least know that the government is looking at some security concerns and some concerns about the content that these AI models have as they interact with their users...”

From the story:
Moran says she is not surprised the DOJ missed its Thursday midnight deadline, which she says it asked for as an extension on the original response deadline.

“A year and a half ago, I would have said it’s extremely rare,” she said. “But what we saw, even here in Minnesota, over and over in the federal district court, is the Department of Justice failing to meet deadlines.”

The Hennepin County Attorney’s office released a statement late Friday afternoon indicating it did eventually get some response, a response that 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS hasn’t seen yet.