2026 Alumnx Awards

Every year in April the Department of WGSS celebrates its students, faculty, and “alumnx” (as we prefer to call our graduates) at its Annual Awards Ceremony with a catered banquet, a running slide show of people and places we went, awards and recognition—and a lot of flowers. Here are our awardees this year:

Carolyn Sachs – The Outstanding AlumnX Award

Carolyn Sachs is Professor Emerita of Rural Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, having served as a much-loved department head of WGSS for many years. Sachs’ work has taken her around the globe to study the interrelationships of agricultural and environmental challenges to women’s lives—and to women’s leadership in responding to these challenges. She has engaged government agencies such as USAID, and NGOs such as the United Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Sachs has authored many books on women, gender, agriculture and environment, most recently, The Gender and Agriculture Handbook (2020) and Women and Small Holder Farming: Addressing Global Inequities in Agriculture (2025). Today, she is working on new editions of her previously published Gender and Agriculture Handbook and Rural Sociology Handbook.

María del Rosario Castro Bernardini – The Emerging Feminist Award

This award is new this year, to recognize early-career individuals and alumnx who have embodied and promoted our department’s social justice commitment.

María del Rosario Castro Bernardini graduated in 2017 with a Dual-Title Ph.D. in WGSS and Rural Sociology. She brought her passion for teaching and research to a position outside the academy, working for the last several years at Oxfam America as a senior researcher. Castro helped establish collaborative alliances with research centers, universities, academic associations, and multilateral organizations. She spearheaded the development of joint financing proposals, shaped development proposals for food security and aid, and authored publications on these projects. Castro is bringing these activities to a close as she seeks a new position more closely tied to an academic setting, where she can continue to tap her expertise in advocacy, and evidence-based research and program design – but also return to teaching once again.