Mortenson Center Digest - Q3 2021 |
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Congratulations Summer Graduates!
Tejovan Parker - BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering & Graduate Certificate
Kelsey Reeves - PhD in Environmental Engineering & Graduate Certificate
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Scott Gregory grew up in Glenwood, Iowa and graduated from the University of Missouri in 2012, with a BS in Civil Engineering. After graduation, Scott worked as an on-site construction engineer for healthcare, education and commercial projects in Missouri and Colorado. A passion for capacity building and expanding his impact as an engineer fueled his return to higher education to pursue a graduate degree with the Mortenson Center.
During Scott’s time at the University of Colorado Boulder he was actively involved with the Mortenson Center and the Construction Engineering and Management department. Scott completed his practicum with Build Change in Padang, Indonesia, working on homeowner-lead, post-disaster reconstruction programming. He later completed a second internship with Build Change in Kathmandu, Nepal, supporting resilient reconstruction efforts following the 2015 earthquakes. Scott then joined the organization as a staff engineer with a focus on construction training, curriculum development and construction quality control, and supported additional homeowner-lead disaster reconstruction and resiliency programs in the Caribbean and South Pacific regions.
Today, Scott serves as a Program Engineer for Engineers Without Borders-USA. He applies sustainable community development practices daily through the management and support of infrastructure projects with the organization’s International Community Program in Latin America and Southeast Asia. This includes technical and non-technical support of community-driven projects, resource development and strategic planning.
Scott’s Advice to Students:
Communication is key! When working across different cultures and contexts, be sure to establish clear lines of written and verbal communication between all stakeholders. Ask questions, listen intently, respect all input and remain open-minded and flexible.
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Diego Sanchez grew up in Monterrey, Mexico and graduated from CU Boulder in 2013, with a BS in Engineering Physics. After graduation, he became interested in urban farming, food resilience, and scalable technology for international development while working at Ceres Greenhouse Solutions in Boulder. Through friends, he discovered the Mortenson Center and decided to apply, thinking it was a great intersection of engineering and developing communities. During his time at the Mortenson Center, Diego was deeply inspired by meeting people who were passionate about improving the lives of the most vulnerable. Diego completed his practicum at one of Latin America’s premier bio-reserves and eco-resorts, Reserva Conchal in Costa Rica. This experience cemented his love of permaculture and motivated him to learn more about water management and geographic information system (GIS) mapping.
Today, Diego is working as the Floodplain Administrator for the County of Maui (the three Hawaiian islands of Maui, Molokai and Lanai). He ensures that projects built in flood hazard areas comply with FEMA floodplain management standards and provides guidance on long-term resilience against tsunamis, tropical storms and riverine floods. The GIS mapping skills he acquired during his time in the Mortenson Center are a key part of his work. In addition to this role, Diego is also running a side-business in Mexico selling natural herbal supplements, primarily comprised of CBD from Colorado. The company’s long-term vision is to work with indigenous communities in Mexico to farm hemp and other high-value herbal crops to create a fully integrated supply chain that benefits impoverished communities.
Diego’s advice to current students:
Think outside the box and reach out to people who have your “dream job”. That’s what he did and, while most did not respond, a few did. The emails helped him to keep looking for opportunities and eventually led to a position in Maui. Beyond that, Diego recommends being entrepreneurial and finding a way to create your own job, company, or side hustle.
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Are you an alum with a story to share? Inspire current MCGE students!
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Jen Morin is a Professional Master's student studying Global Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University, where she also received a minor in Business Administration. During her undergraduate career, she leveraged Northeastern's co-op program to garner over two years of industry experience working in mechanical engineering positions at Instron, Bose, and SmartFlower Inc. As an undergrad, she dedicated her spare time to building high power rockets and serving as president of Northeastern's chapter of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
In 2017, Jen saw an IMAX film at the Boston Museum of Science that featured Avery Bang and her venture, Bridges to Prosperity. This film was the first time she had ever considered the possibility of engineering for humanitarian purposes. After graduating, she began working at GE Aviation as a helicopter engine design engineer, but still explored the Engineering for Change website regularly, looking for ways to break into the international development sphere. Eventually, she found it in the form of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering. Her favorite thing about the Mortenson Center is being surrounded by people and content that challenge her existing views. Jen is the Mortenson Center student assistant, helping to craft the bi-weekly newsletter, support the center, and maintain the website. She completed her summer practicum in Brownsville, TX with Solidarity Engineering, where she coordinated clean water and infrastructure interventions across the border in Mexico.
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Kevin Pulley is a second-year graduate student in the Professional Master’s in Global Environmental Engineering and is the MCGE Student Representative. He serves as the voice of the graduate student body and holds a voting position on the Mortenson Center Executive Committee. Kevin supports MCGE student group meetings like the anti-racism discussions, Cup of Current Events and Spanish Club. He helps to plan outdoor events, happy hours, and group volunteering opportunities to support global engineering practices in Boulder. Kevin is also a co-lead for the 2022 Colorado WASH Symposium.
Prior to attending CU Boulder, Kevin earned a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Washington Seattle. His interest in global engineering stems from his experiences researching water/wastewater management and treatment in Jordan with students and professors from the Jordan University of Science and Technology. He was also inspired by his internship with the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, where he helped to provide quality education, nutrition, family care, and healthcare to children living in Bangalore's urban slum communities. This past summer, he was a full-time technical volunteer for Movement on the Ground providing humanitarian assistance in the RIC Lesvos refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos.
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Discovery Learning Apprentices |
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The Mortenson Center provides financial support to undergraduate engineering students in the Discovery Learning Apprenticeship (DLA) program. These students are paid for hourly research with faculty whose work aligns with our mission. See what this year's Mortenson Center DLA's are doing: |
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Cole Velasquez is working on a project based in Puerto Rico that seeks to understand how the perceptions of safe construction practices influence informal construction. He is assisting in the final phase of the project, helping to establish a communication plan for community-based organizations that will disseminate the findings to local residents. |
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Elizabeth Wallace is investigating how project-based learning enhances student interest in STEM in Colorado and Mongolian high schools. High school students will conduct their own soil quality research project. Then, the project’s impact on how students identify as scientists, engineers, and future college students will be assessed through surveys, interviews and observations. |
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Nicholas Grant has a project focused on quantifying the material intensities of residential buildings located in low- and middle- income communities and quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions associated with these materials. This work is a step toward creating a sustainable built environment across the globe. |
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Whitney Knopp is working with a research group calibrating low-cost particulate matter sensors. These sensors live in air quality monitoring pods that make the acquisition of real-time air quality data more accessible and affordable. This research aims to have implications in air quality sensing during natural events, such as forest fires, as well as generally in communities both domestic and abroad. |
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Rafeal Morales is performing experiments using UV light to inactivate bacteria in biofilm. The experiments use different UV light lamps to calculate the necessary exposure periods needed to achieve a given cell log reduction. Rafael will design and perform experiments to test the effectiveness of a prototype UV light hand sanitization station on inactivating Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. |
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USAID’s Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership (SWS) hosted a five-day virtual event in September that presented evidence and lessons around strengthening water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems to sustain services through systems understanding and engagement, professionalized maintenance, and collective action.
Participants benefited from five years of research and evidence gathered through the partnership and learned how to apply these tools and approaches to their work in the sector.
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MCGE Authored Publications |
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Affiliates and alumni of the Mortenson Center are featured on a number of CU-led Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) publications. The MCGE authors in the below publications include Associate Director Amy Javernick-Will, Associate Director Karl Linden and alumni Nicolas Valcourt and Liesbet Olaerts and MCGE student Kimberly Pugel.
Pathways for collaboratively strengthening water and sanitation systems
Kimberly Pugel, Amy Javernick-Will, and Karl Linden are among the authors that assess the pathways that drove or impeded the progress of collaborative approaches for WASH service delivery in Eastern Africa.
System Approaches to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: A Systematic Literature Review
Nicholas Valcourt, Amy Javernick-Will and Karl Linden are among the authors who compiled systematic literature of the systems approaches for WASH. Analysis of the results led the authors to propose four recommendations for improving the evidence base.
Factors Influencing Revenue Collection for Preventative Maintenance of Community Water Systems: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Liesbet Olaerts, Karl Linden, and Amy Javernick-Will were members of a research team that investigated communities in Uganda participating in preventative maintenance programs for water services. The team explored and identified the necessary conditions for water service payment compliance.
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Evaluating the Role of Gender in Knowledge Seeking |
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Though there are more women pursuing engineering than ever before, women make up only 11% of the global engineering workforce. This imbalance produces obstacles and disadvantages for women in the workplace, including a possible barrier in knowledge accessibility. Dr. Amy Javernick-Will, Mortenson Center Associate Director and Professor Tony Tong of the CU Boulder Leeds School of Business teamed up with other researchers to explore the role of gender in knowledge seeking in professional environments.
The research team conducted a survey of 312 engineers (37% female, 63% male) to assess knowledge accessibility across four different types of gender groups. This study found that women are more likely to ask questions to gain information in general and that they are more likely to put their questions to other women.
The paper, titled, Gendered Knowledge Accessibility: Evaluating the Role of Gender in Knowledge Seeking among Engineers in the U.S., won the Journal of Management Engineering best paper award for 2021. The paper puts forth ideas for how to tackle this pervasive issue, including revamping mentoring programs to pair people based on professional similarities rather than personal similarities, like gender. The paper states that, at a minimum, workplaces need to embrace a cultural shift that encourages the sharing of expertise.
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Critical Next Steps: SDG 6 in High-income Countries |
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Mortenson Center alumni Kaitlin Mattos and Mortenson Center Associate Director Karl Linden are among the authors who synthesized the results of the conversation the took place at the 2020 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Water and Health conference. Researchers and practitioners discussed WASH inequalities in high-income countries and the resulting paper provides approaches and next steps to increase access to WASH services in communities that are often forgotten. The recently published paper is titled Reaching those left behind: knowledge gaps, challenges, and approaches to achieving SDG 6 in high-income countries.
Critical Next Steps for SDG 6 in High-income Countries:
The authors call for the termination of racist and nationalist policies that deprive historically marginalized communities access to resources; improving legislation; fulfilling existing treaties with Indigenous peoples; increasing the rights of undocumented persons; and starting national efforts to collect and share WASH data.
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Job & Funding Opportunities |
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Assistant Professor
Global Engineering
Toronto, Canada
Nov. 15, 2021 - Deadline to Apply
The Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto invites applications for a full-time tenure position, in the area of Global Engineering at the rank of Assistant Professor. The target start date for this appointment is July 1, 2022. Applicants must have a PhD related to Global Engineering or a relevant field by the time of appointment or shortly thereafter
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Associate I, Flood Prepared Communities
Washington, DC
Oct. 28, 2021 - Application Deadline
The Associate I with Pew Charitable Trusts works to execute federal and state policy activities for Pew’s flood-prepared communities initiative. The Associate I creates materials for public distribution, monitors legislative developments, conducts analysis of federal and state campaign goals and supports policy development.
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Mortenson Center in Global Engineering | University of Colorado Boulder |
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