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Mortenson Center Quarterly Digest - Q1 2020
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The Mortenson Center engages in global engineering and combines education, research, and partnerships to positively impact vulnerable people and their environment by improving development tools and practice. Our vision is a world where everyone has safe water, sanitation, energy, food, shelter, and infrastructure. Learn more about the center on our website,
http://www.colorado.edu/mcedc
.
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Congratulations to the 2020 Global Engineering Award Winners
The Mortenson Center hosted the second annual Global Engineering Awards recognizing a professional and a student whose work aligns with the Mortenson Center's mission and vision and who contribute to the field of global engineering. This year honored Suman Kumar as the winner of the Outstanding Student Award, Cathy Leslie won the Humanitarian Award and Valeri Labi was the Outstanding Professional Award winner.
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Outstanding Student Award
Suman will be starting his Masters in Global Affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing this fall. He received his Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Cum Laude with Distinction from the University of Rochester in 2019. After graduating, he has served as the CEO and Chief of Engineering at the Diyalo Foundation, which promotes free, high-quality education in rural Nepal. Suman has been recognized for this work and his leadership by the United Nations, the Fulbright Commission and the Resolution Project, among others.
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Outstanding Professional Award
Valerie Labi is the Country Director of iDE Ghana. In this role, Val founded the social enterprise Sama Sama, which has provided improved sanitation services to more than 14,000 people in the Northern Regions of Ghana. Prior to iDE, Val was the CEO of Clean Team Toilets, Ghana, a container-based sanitation service provider in Kumasi. While in this role, Val was recognized by President Obama with the award of the 2014 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.
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Humanitarian Award
Cathy Leslie has served as Engineers Without Borders USA's (EWB-USA) Executive Director since 2004. She has overseen the growth of the organization from one university chapter to 288 student and professional chapters. The 16,800+ passionate, highly skilled volunteers that comprise these chapters work in more than 40 countries around the world and impact the lives of millions.
Cathy began her career working in water and sanitation engineering in Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Following her service, she spent more than 30 years working as a consultant on the design and management of civil engineering projects, including providing master planning expertise to developing communities. Cathy
is the recipient of the 2008 William H. Wiley Civil Engineer Award for her contributions to the engineering profession and the 2014 ASCE Presidents' Award for her leadership of EWB-USA and her dedication to building sustainable engineering projects in underserved communities. Under her leadership, EWB-USA received the 2010 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology for its notable work connecting engineering students with development projects around the globe.
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Ron Garan
Keynote Speaker
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Former Astronaut Ron Garan In Space
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This year's Global Engineering Awards keynote speaker was former NASA astronaut and humanitarian
Ron Garan
. His
lessons from living, working, and spacewalking on the International Space Station, serve as a perfect illustration for collaboration.
Ron's long-term and big-picture perspective continues to effect positive change in individuals and organizations across the planet. He is
the author of the critically acclaimed book
The Orbital Perspective and is currently launching two new books: Railroad to the Moon and Floating in Darkness
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Amy Javernick-Will
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Amy Javernick-Will Guest Editing a
Sustainability Special Issue
Sun. May 31, 2020 - Submission Deadline
Mortenson Center Associate Director for Graduate Education and Research Dr. Amy Javernick-Will along with Mortenson Center alum Dr. Aaron Opdyke at the University of Sydney are guest editing a Special Issue for the journal
Sustainability entitled "Sheltering and Housing Displace Populations". This Special Issue seeks contributions focusing on sheltering and housing in post-disaster settlements. Contributions should
unpack issues of sheltering and housing accessibility, affordability, safety, sustainability, and the associated environmental, social, and economic issues facing displaced populations. They also seek manuscripts which analyze the intersection of built infrastructure systems in post-disaster settlements, such as water, sanitation, power, drainage, and transportation. Learn more about submitting a paper.
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Research Updates
Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) journal articles to date in 2020:
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Pugel, K., Javernick-Will, A., Koschmann, M., Peaabody, S., and Linden, K. (2020). "Adapting Collaborative Approaches for Service Provision to Low-Income Countries: Expert Panel Results".
Sustainability
. 12(7), 2612;
10.3390/su12072612
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Valcourt, N., Walters, J., Javernick-Will, A., Linden, K., Hailegiorgis, B. (2020). "Understanding Rural Water Services as a Complex System: An assessment of key factors as potential leverage points for improved service sustainability."
Sustainability.12(3), 1243;
10.3390/su12031243.
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Valcourt, N., Javernick-Will, A., Walters, J., Linden, K. (2020). "Systems Approaches to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: A Systematic Literature Review".
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 17(3), 702;
10.3390/ijerph17030702.
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MacArthur Foundation Honors Drought Emergency Strategy
A CU Boulder and Millennium Water Alliance-led program committed to ending humanitarian drought emergencies in the Horn of Africa has been named one of the Top 100 in the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
100&Change competition, and remains in the running for the competition's award of a single $100 million grant. "We are excited to be part of the Top 100 of 100&Change," said Dr. Evan Thomas, the project's Principal Investigator."DRIP (Drought Resilience Impact Platform) recognizes the increasing severity of drought in the region and the importance of creating and implementing solutions that communities, countries and partners can use to end drought emergencies."
Read the article.
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New Publication: Toilet alarms
A new article in
Developing Engineering is out titled: Toilet alarms: A novel application of latrine sensors and machine learning for optimizing sanitation services in informal settlements, authored by Nick Turman-Bryant, Mortenson Center student Taylor Sharpe, Corey Nagel, Lauren Stover and Mortenson Center Director Evan A. Thomas. "While much attention has been focused on latrines for rural populations and campaigns to end open defecation, the need for improved and safely managed sanitation facilities is acute in dense informal settlements in rapidly urbanizing areas."
This study used cellular-connected motion sensors and machine learning to dynamically predict when daily latrine servicing could be skipped with a low risk of overflow.
Read the article.
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Linden Wins Water Treatment Innovation Prize
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Karl Linden (left) in the Lab
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Karl Linden, Mortenson Center Professor in Sustainable Development, was selected to receive the Borchardt-Glysson Water Treatment Innovation Prize. This prize recognizes a professional whose accomplishments in the water or wastewater treatment fields have been particularly influential. Read the article and learn more about Professor Linden's Research.
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Thomas Wins Climatelinks Photo Contest
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Project: Kenya Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development
Photo by: Evan Thomas
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Out of 170 submissions from more than 40 countries, Mortenson Center Director Evan Thomas' photo was one of 13 winners of the Climatelinks photo contest. Winners were featured in the official USAID Climate and Development: Journey to Self Reliance 2020 calendar.
See the other winning photographs.
Climatelinks is a global knowledge portal for USAID staff, implementing partners and the broader community working at the intersection of climate change and international development.
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Christina Barstow Wins Alumni Award
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Kristina Barstow
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Congratulations go out to MCGE graduate Christina Barstow, winner of the CU Boulder Recent Alumni Award (RAA). The RAA recognizes one outstanding alumnus/a each year for professional achievements, continued service to the college or university and admirable personal characteristics and are within ten years of graduation from college. Christina is currently the Chief Operating Officer for Bridges to Prosperity, a non-governmental organization providing access to remote communities through the construction of pedestrian footbridges. |
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Interview With Elizabeth Jordan
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Elizabeth Jordan
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Mortenson Center alumna Elizabeth Jordan is a Water and Sanitation Adviser in the United States Agency for International Development's Bureau for Food Security. She helps improve USAID's water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs and oversees the Agency's WASH research activities. She is currently supporting USAID's WASH project in Haiti.
Read the interview and learn more about Elizabeth's experience and the advice she has for the next generation of women in STEM.
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Rana Abdel Satar
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Congratulations Rana!
Mortenson Center alumna (December 2019) Rana Abdel Satar will be a WASH Program Fellow with
iDE Cambodia starting May 2020. She will be working on the third phase of iDE's sanitation marketing scale-up including increasing sanitation coverage in project areas from 67% (as of 2018) to 85% (by 2023). Rana will lead the coordination and writing process to produce reporting material for program funders. She will develop external communication materials and collect insights and stories on her visits to program implementation sites and through interviews with stakeholders. Rana will also be supporting the development and maintenance of the program's internal knowledge management systems and processes among other duties.
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2020 WASH Symposium a Success!
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2020 Colorado WASH Symposium Planning Committee
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The University of Colorado Boulder welcomed students, practitioners, and researchers from near and far to the 2020 Colorado WASH Symposium held on March 4th and 5th. The student-run symposium was organized by graduate students from the Mortenson Center. This year, over 190 people from 80 different organizations converged in Boulder to network and take part in 42 different sessions on the themes of water, waste, sanitation, hygiene, climate change, and natural resources management.
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Xavier
Bricullé
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Xavier Bricull
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In Guatemala, there is limited infrastructure to deal with solid waste, so most of it is dumped into the environment. Some of this waste, particularly plastic, finds its way into rivers and is washed out to sea. At the mouth of the Motagua River, the coastal town of Puerto Barrios is being inundated with trash from the country's capital, Guatemala City. This problem is wreaking havoc on local fisheries and hindering tourism. In response, Xavier Bricullé, a visiting undergraduate student from Spain, is trying to create a blueprint for cleaning up the river.
Working with MCGE Faculty Carlo Salvinelli and alumna Rana Abdel-Sattar, Xavier is creating a model of the interconnected systems underlying the waste management issue. The project, which has not been published at this time, will conclude with recommendations to local governments in the area. These efforts will hopefully help protect small rural communities in Guatemala, the Motagua River, as well as the Caribbean Reef, the world's second-largest. Xavier currently resides in Spain.
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MCGE Student Breakfast Club...Then
The Mortenson Center student group Breakfast Club series gets graduate students out of bed early on Friday mornings.
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From left clockwise: Matt Burke, Becky Ventura, Bill Seites-Rundlett, Anna Libey, Ayush Shahi, Matthew Falcone,Kelsey Reeves & Annie Huang (Marcello Arroio & Sally Gerster not pictured)
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Remote participants from left: Emily Bedell, Tara Elizabeth Randall, Melanie Holland, Ayush Raj Shahi, Sage Sherman, Mathew Falcone, Abigail Bradshaw, Xavier Briculle, Becky Ventura.
The student breakfast club continues to meet for rousing morning conversation.
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State of Engineering for Global Development in the US & Canada
Results from Engineering For Change's exploration found 32 higher educational institutions in the US and Canada now offer a variety of Engineering for Global Development opportunities.
Learn
where other global engineering programs, research centers and conferences are around the country. Read the
full report.
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Measuring Impact in Global Engineering
Engineering For Change's Seminar Series features academic laboratories researching solutions to meet the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. Each month will feature presentations of new findings from investigative teams around the globe. Presenters will include Mortenson Center Director Dr. Evan Thomas. Researchers can submit an applications to take part in the series by emailing: research@engineeringforchange.org.
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Lessons From Rwanda On Tackling Unsafe Drinking Water & Household Air Pollution
DelAgua and the Ministry of Health in partnership with the Rwanda Ministry of Health created a program branded "Tueho Neza", which translates to "live well". Together they evaluated which technologies could most effectively reduce drinking water contamination and indoor air pollution.
Read the article in The Conversation.
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Do you have program questions, comments, or want to change the frequency of which you are contacted by the Mortenson Center?
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