Data Champion, National Youth Employment Coalition, 2025
Led by Executive Director Alicia Modestino, C2C was recognized for its innovative use of data to improve youth employment outcomes and influence public policy. The award was presented on May 13th during NYEC’s annual forum, “Empowering Youth, Transforming Communities,” held in Minneapolis. “Our long-standing partnership with the city of Boston, supported by $1 million in external funding from William T. Grant Foundation, is a prime example of how higher education can harness both knowledge and resources to make meaningful impact that affects people’s everyday lives,” Modestino said.
Evidence Champion, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), MIT, 2024
In recognition of her community-engaged research that partners academic scholars and community organizers, Alicia Modestino has been selected as the second annual Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab North America (J-PAL North America) evidence champion. The honor recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the field of evidence-based policymaking. Modestino reflected “We are moving at the speed of trust. If you are trying to develop an intervention with an organization, understand that you are working with their constituents, their participants, their young people, their communities, which takes a lot of trust.”
University Global Network Accelerator Award, Northeastern University, 2023.
C2C Executive Director and founder Alicia Modestino was awarded the inaugural Global Network Accelerator award in May for “a model of how Northeastern’s global network can be leveraged to create real and meaningful change.” The award recognizes the contributions of faculty who push the advancement of experiential learning beyond the boundaries of place to connect diverse communities with the goal of solving the greatest challenges of today. “C2C was designed in a very systematic way to not just incentivize and fund research across the global university system, but also to create a community of practice across Northeastern’s researchers while sharing knowledge from one campus location to another—all centered around doing community-engaged research,” Modestino said.
University Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award, Northeastern, 2022
This award is presented to a full-time faculty member to honor outstanding research and creative activity of national and international significance. The president and the provost determine the recipients on the basis of a faculty committee report on nominations received.
Outstanding Faculty Research Team Award, College of Engineering, Northeastern University, 2020.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers was awarded a $2.5 million NSF grant to create “Co-worker Robots to Impact Seafood Processing (CRISP): Designs, Tools and Methods for Enhanced Worker Experience.” This team is working with the seafood processing industry as a test case to learn more about how robots could be integrated into the workforce. These robotic coworkers would simultaneously make the workplace safer and more comfortable for human workers and more efficient and profitable for companies. Taskin Padir, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, will be designing and building the robots; Alicia Sasser Modestino, associate professor of public policy, urban affairs, and economics, is evaluating the economic impact on workers and companies; John Basl, associate professor of philosophy, is looking at the ethics of autonomy; Kristian Kloeckl, associate professor of art, design, and architecture, is investigating the best way for humans and robots to work together; and Kemi Jona, assistant vice chancellor of digital innovation and enterprise learning, is designing training programs to give workers the skills they will need in the new workplace.
