Mortenson Center Quarterly Digest - Q1 2021 |
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Global Engineering Award Winners |
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Congratulations to the winners of the 3rd Annual Global Engineering Awards! The winners are:
Dr. Sarim Al-Zubaidy, Global Engineering Humanitarian Award
Sarim is an engineer with over thirty years’ experience in executive, administrative and academic positions in a variety of higher education institutions around the world.
Dr. Allie Davis, Global Engineering Student Award
Allie is a Foreign Affairs Officer and an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Conservation and Water at the U.S. Department of State.
Mr. Eugene Dusingizumuremyi, Global Engineering Professional Award
Eugene is an experienced engineer working with Water For People in Rwanda since 2012.
The Mortenson Center hosts the annual Global Engineering Awards to recognize professionals and students whose work aligns with the Mortenson Center’s mission and vision. These awards highlight individuals whose work contributes to the field of Global Engineering.
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MCGE & UNESCO Engineering Report |
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UNESCO has published two landmark reports on Engineering, a decade apart. The first was widely recognized and while some fundamental features of the engineers’ mission and responsibility remain, times have changed markedly in the ten years since its publication. The second UNESCO Engineering Report, Engineering for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals, published on March 4, 2021, was co-authored and co-edited by Mortenson Center Founding Director, Dr. Bernard Amadei and current Mortenson Director Dr. Evan Thomas.
The report highlights the crucial role of engineering in achieving each of the 17 SDGs. By presenting case studies and approaches, as well as possible solutions, the report reveals why engineering is crucial for sustainable development and why the role of engineers is vital in addressing basic human needs such as alleviating poverty, supplying clean water and energy, responding to natural hazards, constructing resilient infrastructure and bridging the development divide. The report also provides a snapshot of engineering innovations, especially emerging technologies, which are crucial for addressing the pressing challenges facing humankind and the planet.
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Profiles in Global Engineering |
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The latest interview is with Dan Hollander, an American hydraulic engineer and former US State Department foreign service officer. He has worked around the world and now leads an international program studying water and sanitation services, the USAID-funded Sustainable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Learning Partnership.
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Keeping a Dry Eye on Drought in East Africa |
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Mortenson Center Director Evan Thomas is a former NASA engineer and is the principal investigator of the NASA-funded project to incorporate satellite data into the efforts of the Drought Resilience Impact Platform (DRIP) as part of the joint NASA-USAID SERVIR program. The SERVIR program aims to build capacity for Earth observations' use in decision making around the world. DRIP currently monitors the water supplies of 3 million people via satellite-connected sensors installed on pumps across hundreds of sites in Kenya and Ethiopia. With advance notice through warning data, drought emergencies can be made less dangerous when combined with water resilience efforts such as improved rural water supplies, and maintenance of access points. It can even be more cost effective than emergency relief, like trucking in water.
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Congratulations ASCE New Faces |
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American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) has honored Mortenson Center alumni Dr. Aaron Opdyke as a 2021 New Face of Civil Engineering. Aaron has been instrumental in starting a new humanitarian engineering program at the University of Sydney. Speaking about the new program Aaron says, "We’re focused on training engineers to work with marginalized and low-income communities. Traditional engineering toolsets, while they provide a base for us to work in these contexts – we really need as engineers to go a step further to understanding the unique challenges that these types of communities face."
Kimberly Pugel, doctoral candidate in civil systems engineering at CU Boulder, has also been honored as an ASCE 2021 New Face of Civil Engineers. Kimberly has developed a research program to assess international development projects that strengthen rural water and sanitation systems in East Africa. When asked how she would envision her career Kimberly said, “I definitely see myself as part of a team that’s working tirelessly to help governments build robust systems and policies so they can make water infrastructure reliably provide services amid climate change.”
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Helena Pliszka is pursuing a Master of Research in Environmental Engineering at CU Boulder with a focus on air quality as well as earning the Mortenson Center's Certificate in Global Engineering. In 2020, she received her BS in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She joined the Nathanson Research Group her freshman year and worked to understand the nighttime chemistry of nitrogen dioxide with sea spray aerosols. She also discovered she enjoyed hands-on circuit construction and sought a way to apply it to atmospheric and environmental work.
At CU Boulder, Helena has joined the air quality research and community outreach efforts of Dr. Michael Hannigan’s group, applying her drive for action-oriented engineering work to low-cost instrumentation. She is the lead on particulate matter sensor integration into the research group’s designed Y-Pod – a low-cost portable air quality monitor that houses a range of gas-phase sensors. Her group is currently employing the Y-Pod in a year-long Air Quality InQuiry (AQIQ) course, co-led by Dr. Hannigan, that facilitates environmental engagement with students in rural Colorado schools and at the National University of Mongolia. In her spare time, Helena strives to apply these low-cost sensing tools and passion for citizen science to her own research of studying the physical transport and associated air quality effects of urban deployed tear gas.
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Anit Koirala is a first-generation refugee immigrant from Nepal. In 2019, he graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and a certificate in Engineering Leadership. In summer 2019, Anit worked in rural Southwestern Uganda on clean energy and efficient farming projects. He also worked on a research project on sustainability in the Bidibidi refugee settlement in northwestern Uganda. Anit is currently pursuing a Professional Master's degree in Global Engineering. He will be working on designing a community-level water treatment plant for his summer practicum. Anit enjoys writing poetry, playing soccer, and traveling to new places in his spare time. |
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Joany Tisdale is working toward her PhD in Civil Engineering with a focus in Civil Systems at CU Boulder. She has a Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from Auburn University and a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. Joany worked in biofuels research for five years at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory until she discovered her true calling: teaching. She began teaching Mechanical Engineering as adjunct faculty at the University of Denver and taught physics at Valor Christian High School. She is now pursuing her PhD so that she can teach at the college level and she currently teaches GEEN 1400 (general engineering projects for freshmen) at CU Boulder.
While her first passion is teaching and helping students broaden their perspectives, she has always had a desire to help people around the world. Joany has carried out service work in Colombia, Cuba, and Honduras and is excited that her pursuit of the Global Engineering Certificate with the Mortenson Center will help her combine humanitarian work with engineering. Outside of her many academic endeavors, Joany enjoys cooking, puzzles, skiing, and getting outdoors with her two kids (who served with her in Honduras in 2019).
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Ayush Raj Shahi is an Environmental Engineering and Global Engineering Doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder. He was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal and moved to the U.S. for his graduate education. Ayush got his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Tribhuvan University in Nepal and worked for a labor-based, environmentally-friendly road construction and management project in rural western Nepal for 18 months. He then earned his M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of New Mexico where he conducted research focused on the treatment of wastewater from flue-gas desulphurization using ion exchange and nanofiltration. His research at CU Boulder focuses on arsenic treatment in drinking water for small-scale communities using ion-exchange methods. Ayush was the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering Research Fellow in 2019-2020. In the summer of 2020, he completed a three-month internship with iDE. Ayush was the chair of the 2021 Colorado WASH Symposium and a member of the Anti-Racism and Representation Committee of the Graduate and Professional Student Government at CU Boulder. |
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Emma Wells is an Environmental Engineering PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. She came to CU Boulder after working as a Community Health and Education Program manager for a non-governmental organization in rural Guatemala where she worked with health promoters to run malnutrition prevention, diabetes management, home improvement and adolescent health programs. Emma also worked in the Center for Disease Control Global Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) group, conducting research on the effectiveness of WASH interventions and outbreak response.
Emma is pursuing a Global Engineering Certificate with the Mortenson Center so she can learn how to apply her technical skills effectively in the complex field of global development. In her research, Emma will measure sustained safe water quality at rural water points through both microbiological indicators and the social and organizational factors that have influence. She is currently working in the lab on ultraviolet (UV) applications for water treatment and wastewater reuse.
Emma appreciates the dedication of the Mortenson Center community to learning about the harms that have come from current systems of development and exploring how they can be avoided in the future. She also loves how the students and professors in the Mortenson Center come from a variety of backgrounds, creating an environment where she can learn from everyone's unique experience and perspectives.
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Capacity for Risk Reduction |
This study is one of the first to systematically compare perceptions and assessments of housing safety and advances understanding of alignment, or misalignment, of local and scientific knowledge of safe building practices. The authors recommend that future post-disaster training programs incorporate discussions of a house's load path to focus on how components work together, enabling design and modification decisions that support improved housing performance. Authors are: Casie Venable, Amy Javernick-Will, Abbi B. Liel, Matthew A. Koschmann
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A Discrete Choice Experiment |
Mortenson Center Alumni James Harper, Associate Director Amy Javernick-Will, CU Boulder Professor Angela Bielefeldt and Mortenson Center Affiliate Katherine Dickinson are among the authors of Household Preferences for Rural Fecal Sludge Management Services in Cambodia: A Discrete Choice Experiment. Trained service providers offer the best path to achieve safe fecal sludge management (FSM) in rural communities, but this service industry is hindered by a lack of understanding household valuation of FSM services in rural Cambodia. Using a discrete choice experiment, the authors characterize rural households’ preferences for four different FSM-service attributes across five provinces.
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Engineering Environmental Resilience |
"Engineering environmental resilience: A matched cohort study of the community benefits of trailbridges in rural Rwanda," was just published in Science of the Total Environment. This pilot study was managed by Mortenson Center Managing Director Laura MacDonald and included the work of PhD student Abigail Bradshaw and Mortenson alum Sally Gerster. The pilot study informed the planning and roll out a four-year study funded by USAID and the Wellspring Foundation to follow up to 200 bridges at scale in Rwanda, building on these positive findings. The full scale study started in August 2021 and includes the work of several PhD students as well as a 40 person staff in Rwanda and co-investigators at the Colorado School of Public Health, Yale, and ASU.
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Project Director
April 1, 2021 - Review Process Begins
The Project Director provides strategic thinking and direction, managerial, and technical leadership for the project and coordination with USAID and other involved partners. The Director ensures impactful implementation and coordination of all program activities under the guidance of the Design Team and the Advisory Board. Some international travel expected.
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Senior Tech Advisor-WASH
Washington, DC
May 17, 2021 - Start Date
The Senior Technical Advisor will inform the development and implementation of WASH approaches and interventions and will provide technical leadership and guidance to WASH interventions.
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Technical Logistician
Apply Now
The Technical Logistician (TechLog) provides daily technical support to MSF medical facilities. The TechLog maintains vehicles and facility buildings, manages and maintains water supply and sanitation facilities, and supervises maintenance of electrical equipment.
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Scientific Project Manager
May 6, 2021 - Application Deadline
The Sandec Department (Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development) at Eawag is currently looking to fill a new position for a technical backstopping mandate on sanitation related technologies in humanitarian settings for Swiss Humanitarian Aid (SHA).This position will work in the Management of Excreta, Wastewater, and Sludge (MEWS) research group, in collaboration with the Strategic Environmental Sanitation Planning (SESP) group.
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Mortenson Center in Global Engineering | University of Colorado Boulder |
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