Fostering Co-op Opportunities in Singapore

Kristina Kutsukos, assistant co-op coordinator in Northeastern University’s College of Engineering traveled to Singapore this past March with a mission to further expand the Global Cooperative Education program. During her 7 years at Northeastern, Kutsukos has worked as an advisor in the the Global Experience Office before moving to her current role on the global co-op team. As an advocate for students participating in global programming, Kutsukos has worked to develop global partnerships through targeting industry and research positions with Northeastern alumni.

Group of recent alumni

“It was a true pleasure to meet. After a few years, it was good to have the NU community to mingle. Thanks to all the organizers for making this event happen.” Joel Tiphonnet, Alum

The focus of the Singapore development trip was to target new areas of industry and research for Northeastern co-op students, visit our current cooperative education partners, and meet with our Northeastern alumni in the region. During her week in the country, Kutsukos visited 12 employers, ranging from university and research positions to start-up companies. Some notable partners include Faithful+ Gould, HubSpot, the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and Cambridge Center for Advanced Research and Education.

“We are so glad you had this event in Singapore. It’s always nice me meet parents, students, staff of the university your child is attending. We welcome such events and encourage you to do it at least twice a year if possible.” Poonam Suri, Parent of Radhika Suri (class of 2026)

In collaboration with Yelena Surilov from Northeastern’s Advancement Global Leadership Relations team, Kutsukos hosted a community event in country, bringing together local alumni, parents, and students of Northeastern. Overall, Northeastern has over 250 registered alumni in the region, 15 from whom are from the College of Engineering, as well as over 250 parents of our current students. The event brought together 45 community members with a tremendous help from local DMSB alumni, Tock-Ling Chua, DMSB’79 and Yuki Shuck, DMSB’17. Tock-Ling, the current Community President opened the evening with his welcome remarks. Overall, it was a great success, as it was the first Northeastern alumni event since before the pandemic to be held in the region.

“Great event Kristina! And thanks for making the effort to be with us…means a lot to those of us who live on the other side of Boston! Special thanks to Yuki who made the organization so easy and smooth and of course to Yelena, who tirelessly keeps us all together year after year!” Tock-Ling Chua, Alum

 

Kristina Kutsukos with Tock-Ling Chua and Tim Zhou (a student studying at Nanyang University).

Related Faculty: Kristina Hubbard