Mortenson Center Digest - Q3 2022 |
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Mortenson Center Associate Director and Professor of Sustainable Development Karl Linden was selected as a 2022 Fulbright Scholar. The prestigious U.S. State Department program offers scholars the chance to teach and conduct research around the world to expand American partnerships and share knowledge. Karl is spending the fall 2022 semester at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to research solutions to water pollution in rural and First Nations communities in Canada.
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Learn more about Karl Linden (2 min) |
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“I want to help transform how we do engineering by incorporating more diverse solutions. If we can build on engineering fundamentals but listen to and incorporate indigenous knowledge and values including the centuries of resilience embedded in these communities, we may find a whole new solution set of ideas and designs." - Karl Linden |
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Testing for E. coli In Real Time |
A new water quality sensor developed by engineers can quickly, cheaply and accurately monitor for the presence of E. coli bacteria in water supplies, an issue that may affect more people in the U.S. and around the world in the future. Mortenson Center alum and fellow Emily Bedell is the lead author on this research that was recently published in Water Research.
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Mortenson Center Managing Director Laura MacDonald and PhD student Denis Macharia give a field report on borehole management and service in Nairobi, Kenya, where they are exploring using carbon financing to improve consistency of water delivery. (1 minute)
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Spotted: Retirement Party |
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Doug Smith recently retired from his position as Assistant Dean for Programs and Projects & CFO in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Doug served on the Executive Committee for the Mortenson Center for many years and has long been an advocate for MCGE. He has impacted thousands of engineers through his various leadership roles both in and outside of the University. MCGE is so grateful to have worked with and benefited from Doug's expertise and leadership. Thank you Doug! |
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Improving Water Resource Management in Colorado |
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A new report highlights some of the most pressing issues facing Colorado water managers and explores technologies as potential solutions to managing the challenges. The report provides details on the findings of a statewide survey and illustrates the importance of gathering qualitative insights from water managers and decision makers.
Emerging Technologies to Improve Water Resource Management in Colorado was published by the Mortenson Center and the Colorado State University Colorado Water Center in response to the State of Colorado House Bill 21-1268 "Emerging technologies for water management study. The research for this report was led by Mortenson Center Project Manager Kat Demaree and PhD student Melanie Holland. Photo credit: Urban Sky
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Creating Resilient Food Systems |
Increased demand for water will be the No. 1 threat to food security in the next 20 years. But political instability, income inequality and migration caused by conflict are also major contributors to food insecurity around the globe.
In a new CU Boulder study led by Mortenson Center Assistant Professor Zia Mehrabi, there is strong support for the idea of building more resilient food systems in general, rather than trying to deal with individual problems.
The new study found a great need for increased collaboration and coordination between researchers who study specific threats to food systems so that decision-makers have comprehensive information, updated models and relevant tools as threats arise.
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“Food security is not a problem of production, it’s a problem of distribution, access and poverty, and that is exacerbated by conflict. Conflict not only makes people more vulnerable but also limits their ability to adapt," said Zia Mehrabi, "It doesn't matter whether it’s a climate, environmental or political shock to the system—if you have resilient systems in place, they'll be able to deal with all the different kinds of shocks.” |
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When she was a student at CU Boulder, Erica Brandt's research with Professor Angela Bielefeldt included studying the impact of dissolved oxygen and total organic carbon on E. coli survival in ceramic water filters. She also investigated the range of efficacies in these filters.
To earn her graduate certificate, Erica participated in the practicum program with CARE and FHI360 on a USAID-funded project called SPLASH (Schools Promoting Learning Achievement through Sanitation and Hygiene) in Eastern Zambia. She appreciated the opportunity to learn alongside a Zambian practicum student from a local university and to see the inner workings of a large development project. She gained valuable experience in multi-cultural communication and project planning.
Erica earned a BS in Environmental Engineering, an MS in Civil Engineering and a Graduate Certificate in Global Engineering.* She especially enjoyed the coursework offered by the Mortenson Center, the practicum experience, and the professors who had industry experience.
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After graduating, Erica worked at Denver Water on their civil infrastructure team working largely on pipeline design projects. She also started volunteering with Bridges to Prosperity overseeing bridge construction in Haiti and was then hired and was later hired as the Senior Program Manager of their Uganda program. She is now the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Bridges to Prosperity in Nairobi, Kenya. She supports teams in various country programs with strategizing, negotiating and securing strategic partnerships.
The Mortenson Center program set Erica up for success in her work by teaching her about the development sector and the importance of thinking holistically about the contexts affecting engineering projects.
*At the time Erica earned her certificate the program was named Graduate Certificate in Engineering for Developing Communities.
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RHRN Global Climate Summit |
December 1-4, 2022
Virtual
United Nations Human Rights, CU Boulder and the Right Here, Right Now (RHRN) Global Climate Alliance are co-hosting a three day global climate summit addressing human rights and climate change. The keynote speaker will be activist Kumi Naidoo, a South African activist, Rhodes scholar and former executive director of Greenpeace Internation.
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Manjeet Pandey is a Mortenson Center online Graduate Certificate student from Kathmandu, Nepal. He earned a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the Gyan Vihar School of Engineering & Technology (GVSET) in India with a COMPEX scholarship. Manjeet found his way to global engineering after returning to Nepal to assist with relief and reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake. He worked as a volunteer before being offered a job as Project Lead Construction Manager with the International Medical Corps (IMC). In this role he led health operations in different affected districts of Nepal and oversaw the reconstruction of 21 health facilities. |
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Manjeet currently works at the UK-based education charity United World Schools (UWS) as Construction and Strategy Director where he has led the construction of 59 schools in Nepal to date. He also established the UWS Nepal branch as a founding board member and launched a construction program operation in Nepal. Manjeet has also recently overseen construction of schools for UWS in Cambodia, Myanmar and Madagascar as a Global Advisor.
The biggest lesson he has learned in his years in the development sector is the importance of aligning community developmental interventions with the locally available technical and material resources to create a positive and sustainable impact. He believes communities carry cultural and generational knowledge that must be reinforced with modern scientific and engineering techniques.
Manjeet learned about the Mortenson Center program through his friend, Suman Kumar, who won the Mortenson Center Global Engineering Outstanding Student Award in 2020. Manjeet will be an incoming master's student in Civil Engineering at CU Boulder in Fall 2023 and plans to conduct research in global engineering-related topics as part of his degree.
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Manjeet is standing in front of a school in Jaisthok village in Nepal. It has 11 classrooms which serve about 180 students from the village. |
Manjeet stands in front of a school under construction in an Ankotapiky village in SW Madagascar. This three-room structure will cater to more than 100 community children |
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Joe Costello is a research-based master’s student in environmental engineering and is pursuing the Global Engineering Graduate Certificate with the Mortenson Center. Joe wants to do impactful and rewarding work solving complicated problems in an interdisciplinary sector and the field of global engineering appealed to him. His master’s research work is on investigating systems that deal with retantate in desalination plants.
This summer, Joe completed his Mortenson Center practicum with Sanergy, a social enterprise based in Nairobi, Kenya. Sanergy provides container-based sanitation in informal settlements and generates revenue from the waste by growing black soldier fly larvae that is then sold as animal feed. Joe's role as a research and development fellow at Sanergy was to support the team, execute trials and work to improve the output and efficiency of fly larvae growth.
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Zeenath Khan was born in Pakistan and grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She grew up witnessing extreme wealth disparities, unreliable infrastructure, and unstable governments. A pivotal moment in her life included surviving the 7.6 magnitude Kashmir Earthquake in 2005, that killed more than 85,000 people and leveled much of the country’s rural infrastructure. She vividly remembers assisting her parents with relief efforts and preparing hundreds of packages containing donated dry food and basic supplies in her living room.
She moved to the United States in 2017 and after graduating from Carleton College with a degree in physics she moved to Missoula, Montana and began working with a family-owned tea company focused on sourcing small-batch and sustainable teas from all over the world. Through this work, she gained an understanding of the role of climate change on global crops and the efforts being made to combat detrimental effects such as utilizing drought-resistant purple tea from Kenya.
Zeenath is the Student Assistant for the Mortenson Center and is currently pursuing a Professional Masters in Environmental Engineering and a Certificate in Global Engineering at CU Boulder. She is most interested in hands-on and people-facing roles that combine nontraditional education and problem solving. This summer she completed her Mortenson Center practicum with the refugee resettlement nonprofit Soft Landing Missoula where she worked on community engagement projects.
Zeenath is grateful for the Mortenson Center and has particularly enjoyed being challenged to think about her identity as a person of color within global engineering.
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Foreign Service Environment Officer
Washington, DC
November 15, 2022 - Deadline to Apply
The Foreign Service Environment Officer at USAID will provide technical leadership and assistance to partner countries to achieve national and global environmental conservation, climate change and sustainable development goals. Duties will include strategic plannin and coordination, program desing and management, monitoring, evaluation oversight and reporting. Some travel required.
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Mortenson Center in Global Engineering | University of Colorado Boulder |
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