Two College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) affiliates who are inspiring examples of using the opportunities presented by our global campus are being honored as 2025 Illinois International Achievement recipients. 

These prestigious annual awards recognize outstanding University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni, faculty, and students whose exceptional work or service has made a significant, global impact.

All recipients will be honored at a banquet co-hosted by the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost, the Illinois Alumni Association, and Illinois International. 

The ACES awardees are inspiring examples of how one can use the vast international opportunities the U. of I. and the College of ACES provide:  

• Undergraduate Achievement Award: David Mock (Dual-degree student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics - Policy, International Trade and Development Concentration and the Department of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies) 
• Charles C. Stewart International Young Humanitarian Award: Colby Silvert (B.S. Crop Sciences, 2014) 

David Mock has shown remarkable and expansive commitment to international work and experiences during his time as an undergraduate. He studied Russian abroad in Kyrgyzstan and in Tbilisi, Georgia, and traveled with ACES Study Abroad to learn about agriculture in Panama and to study leadership in Rome, Italy. He has served as an ACES Study Abroad Global Ambassador, volunteering his time to articulate the value of study abroad to other ACES students. Mock is also a Foreign Language and Area Studies Undergraduate Fellow with the Illinois Global Institute and has won numerous nationally competitive scholarships and internships, including the Hoover Institution Summer Policy Bootcamp. He currently leads an ACES 199 discussion section for Agricultural and Consume Economics students, leading weekly class discussions for students. In addition to his international interests, Mock remains committed to his rural and agricultural roots and globalizing the perspectives of his community. 

Colby Silvert has dedicated himself to international service and the welfare of multiple international communities across three continents since his time as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. Silvert said his spark for international work was lit at the U. of I. where he participated in education abroad programs in Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Columbia, and Brazil. After graduating from the U. of I., Silvert earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in agricultural and extension education at the University of Florida. As the recipient of the prestigious Fulbright research grant, Silvert went back to Brazil to work with small family coffee farmers and assess their access to the global certified coffee markets (such as the Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance) and remains connected to these farmers today. 

Silvert rejoined colleagues at Illinois in 2016 as an in-country specialist with the USAID-funded INGENAES project, based in Sierra Leone, where he held a joint position with the CGIAR research center WorldFish, concentrating on research to promote gender and nutrition sensitive technologies and extension approaches through Feed the Future Sierra Leone Agriculture Project for the development of rice, fish, and diversified horticulture systems.

He currently works as an assistant professor and co-director of the Agricultural and Extension Education Graduate Program at the University of Maryland where he is dedicated to community-based international extension.