Ecuador’s Mount Tungurahua erupting from its sleepy slumber. Argentina’s Perito Moreno glacier rising from the frozen tundra. Waves lapping against one of Venice’s grand palaces. These are just some of the memorable images captured by BU faculty, staff, and students as they traveled the world over the last year.

Global Programs recently announced the winners of its spring photo contest, which challenged photographers to submit works that highlight the ways that the BU community engages with the world.

Girl at Doorway by Kirk Dearden, School of Public Health associate professor of international health, first place tie

By the time the contest ended, more than 500 photos had been submitted by over 200 faculty, staff, and students, representing 74 countries. A panel of eight judges—including Peter Southwick, a College of Communication associate professor of journalism and director of the photojournalism program—picked the top photos based on criteria of global engagement, composition, and diversity.

After much discussion and debate, the judges whittled down the hundreds of submissions to the top 18 entries. Choosing a clear first and second prize winner “proved too daunting a task for even our seasoned judges,” according to the website, resulting in awarding a tie for both first and second place, for a total of four prize-winning photos.

The two first prize winners, Sean Hacker Teper (CAS’15) and Kirk Dearden (CAS’87), a School of Public Health associate professor of international health, won Canon PowerShot SX510 cameras. Teper won for an image titled Ama la Vida, taken in Baños, Ecuador. The photo shows a man aloft on a swing as Mount Tungurahua begins to erupt in the distance. Dearden, who was in Nepal working on a project to improve the nutrition of babies, won for his photo of a young girl partly hidden behind a doorway, titled Girl at Doorway.

Untitled by Mary Gianotti (CAS’15), runner-up

Second prize winners were Nahid Bhadelia, a School of Medicine assistant professor of infectious diseases, who won for a photo titled Ephemeral Landscape, a striking image of Argentina’s glacier Perito Moreno, and Rodrigo Bonilla (CAS’15), whose image titled Colorblind was taken on campus during the annual Hindu Students Council Holi celebration. Bhadelia and Bonilla won Apple TVs.

The photo contest was a way for Global Programs to promote and support connections among the global dimensions of Boston University, both across the University and with global partners, says Willis Wang, vice president and associate provost for Global Programs.

“The photo contest has become one of the immediately impactful ways we make connections to the BU community worldwide,” says Wang, a member of the judges’ panel. “One powerful image conveys more than a thousand words and needs no translation. Our real hope is that the photographs inspire individual faculty, students, researchers, programs, and even entire departments to imagine new ways to support President Brown’s vision of being a truly global university in the 21st century.”

Global Programs comprises Study Abroad, the Center for English Language & Orientation Programs (CELOP), the International Students & Scholars Office (ISSO), and the Office of the Vice President and Associate Provost of Global Programs.