Mortenson Center Quarterly Digest - Q4 2020 |
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Computer Vision Supported Pedestrian Tracking |
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Photo credit: Bridges to Prosperity |
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Isolation caused by lack of transportation infrastructure affects almost every facet of life for the rural poor. Trail bridges can improve access to critical services such as healthcare, schools, and markets.
The Mortenson Center in Global Engineering was brought on to lead an impact evaluation of trail bridges constructed by Bridges to Prosperity in rural Rwanda. This work is in collaboration with researchers at Yale University and Arizona State University as well as Rwandan staff.
Before conducting a full-scale evaluation, the research team conducted a matched-cohort study of twelve bridge sites and twelve comparison sites over a twelve-month period in 2019-2020. As part of this pilot study, sensors were installed at the bridge sites to monitor bridge use, allowing for exploration of the correlation between bridge use and outcomes of interest.
A variety of technologies and analysis methods have been deployed and validated to count pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles crossing bridges and other transportation infrastructure, much of which relies on manual, in-person data collection, which is time-consuming, produces temporally limited data and is labor intensive.
MCGE developed, implemented and validated a novel method using low-cost, readily available motion-activated digital cameras in combination with open-source computer vision algorithms for measuring the use of these bridges. The paper, published in PLOS ONE, describes the technology deployed, the computer vision supported detection algorithm applied, a human-validated error estimate, and early findings of bridge use patterns.
Funding for this work was provided by the Autodesk Foundation
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Profiles in Global Engineering |
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Interviews featured in the series so far:
Dan Hollander is an American hydraulic engineer and former US State Department foreign service officer. He has worked around the world, and he now leads an international program studying water and sanitation services, the USAID-funded Sustainable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Learning Partnership.
Chantal Iribagiza witnessed the impact of workers with the Dutch foreign aid agency SNV who built homes where she lived as a child in Rusizi in southwest Rwanda. Their work inspired her to pursue a career in global development. Chantal is now a PhD candidate in environmental engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder where she has pioneered the use and development of remote sensors for monitoring water infrastructure.
Petros Birhane has worked throughout Ethiopia, South Sudan, Pakistan and Indonesia improving water access, assisting refugees and helping communities recover from tsunamis, droughts and other disasters. He now leads an internationally funded effort to improve water and sanitation access in the lowlands of Ethiopia.
Heather Fleming is the founder of Change Labs, a new co-working and small-business incubator on the Navajo Nation reservation in the U.S. Before that, she co-founded Catapult Design, a non-profit design firm based in Denver, CO with operations around the world. She has dedicated her career to product and service design to reduce poverty worldwide.
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Dr. Karl Linden Awarded
Clarke Prize
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National Water Research Institute (NWRI) and the Joan Irvine and Athalie R. Clarke Foundation presented the 2020 Clarke Prize to Dr. Karl Linden on Nov. 10, 2020. Karl is the Mortenson Professor of Sustainable Development and is past president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. His current research focuses on UV light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and UV for distributed water treatment systems.
The Clarke Prize is one of the most prestigious water prizes in the United States. It is awarded annually to thought leaders in water research, science, technology, or policy.
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Nominations Open
2021 Global Engineering Awards
Jan. 31, 2020 - Deadline to Nominate
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The Mortenson Center will host the Third Annual Global Engineering Awards recognizing a professional and a student whose work aligns with the Mortenson Center's mission and vision.
The Global Engineering Awards seek to highlight the work of individuals who contribute to the field of global engineering. This encompasses not only those students and professionals in traditional engineering disciplines, but also those who are in related disciplines that take a solutions-oriented approach to the same challenges.
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Killing COVID at the
Speed of (UV) Light
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Mortenson Center Associate Director and Mortenson Professor of Sustainable Development Dr. Karl Linden is the guest on Science Rules! with Bill Nye. Karl explains how ultraviolet light can be used to destroy the coronavirus.
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Congratulations Graduates! |
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A big congratulations to this semester's MCGE graduates and a special acknowledgement to all of the extra challenges they faced this semester. Way to go!
Desi Beardmore - MS in Civil Engineering
Tatiana Blanco Quiroga - MS in Water Engineering & Management
James Harper - PhD in Civil Systems Engineering
Anna Libey - MS in Environmental Engineering, continuing on to earn PhD
John Maggi - Professional MS in Environmental Engineering
Tara Randall - MS in Environmental Engineering
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Student Spotlight: Olivia Harmon |
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Olivia Harmon finished her first semester toward earning a Professional Master's in Global Environmental Engineering. She brings a passion for compassionate engineering, inspired by witnessing substandard water and sanitation conditions in the impoverished Black Belt region of Alabama.
While at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Olivia worked on clinical studies of pediatric spinal cord injuries and pain sensitivity of people living with HIV. Currently, Olivia is working with Dr. Evan Thomas and doctoral student Emily Bedell on in situ fluorescence sensing for drinking water systems. This project has the potential to warn water managers in developing communities when water systems are contaminated with bacteria. Olivia also provides support to the Global Engineering Undergraduate Program where she holds office hours and supports extracurricular activities.
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Students in the MCGE course Sustainable Development II, along with their Professor, Mortenson Center Associate Director, Outreach and Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Rita Klees, took part in an African dance class as part of a class cultural event.
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Even though there are obstacles, research and study are going strong at the Mortenson Center. Here MCGE graduate students Taylor Sharpe and Chantal Iribagiza conduct an online video training on the installation of hand pump use sensors with partners in Nigeria. |
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In their new article, Mortenson Center Director Evan Thomas, in collaboration with Professor Joe Brown at the University of North Carolina, identify that the prospects for improving environmental health of the world's poorest people through the application of technologies and development programming are stunted by a fundamentally limited global development context. Symptoms of poverty like the legacies of slavery, colonialism, resource extraction, national debt, unfair trade practices, tax avoidance, and, increasingly, climate change are being addressed by global environmental health and engineering, while not drawing attention to the underlying drivers of those symptoms.
In their article, Using Feedback to Improve Accountability in Global Environmental Health and Engineering, published in Environmental Science and Technology, Evan and Joe propose that the application of smarter, more actionable monitoring and decision support systems and aligned financial incentives can enhance accountability between donors, implementers, service providers, governments and the people who are the intended beneficiaries of development programming. Made possible in part by new measurement techniques, including emerging sensor technologies, rapid impact evaluation, citizen science and performance-based contracting, such systems have the potential to propel the development of solutions that can work over the long term, allowing the benefits of environmental health improvements to be sustained in settings where they are most critical by improving trust and mutual accountability among stakeholders
This perspective is a call to action to the community of practitioners, donors, governments and communities to explicitly link advances in technologies and methods toward supporting solving root causes of persistent poverty by increasing stakeholder accountability at all levels.
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Mortenson Center student Anna Libey's new publication, Who Pays for Water? Comparing Life Cycle Costs of Water Services Among Several Low, Medium and High-income Utilities compares water utility finances in four different countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Cambodia, and the United States. The findings are published in the journal World Development:
Anna's work was born out of the desire to investigate assumptions in financing for urban water utilities in low-income countries compared to where she works in Boulder, CO. The research highlights the disparities between the conceptions and realities of self-sufficient local financial support for water services. Read the brief featured on the Engineering for Change website.
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We Need More Scientists in the U.S. Diplomatic Corp |
This article, written by MCGE Board Member Dr. Alex Dehgan and Dr. Nick Pyenson, illuminates why we need more opportunities for integrating scientists on the front lines of U.S. embassies and missions abroad. Excerpts from the article:
"While discretionary federal funding for basic science has flatlined for a generation, emerging challenges from outside our borders have become more complex, cutting across boundaries, and confronting us within. Whether it's pandemics, nonproliferation, energy, food security or the consequences of climate change, the challenges have become transboundary and increasingly transgenerational-and blind to political persuasion."
"Science provides us a way forward through the global crises we are facing, and it also gives our country a way to put its best foot forward; after all, many values that scientists share, such as respect for evidence, transparency and self-correction are also American values. Given the protracted challenges on the horizon for U.S. foreign policy, the science community represents a vast, untapped asset that should be woven into discussion of who can be a diplomat."
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Orbital Perspective Podcast |
Former astronaut Ron Garan was the featured guest speaker at the Mortenson Center's 2020 Global Engineering awards. He has recently launched a podcast where he will "zoom out" with guests and examine megatrends in this time he calls the Great Transition.
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New Course: Environmental Law |
In Environmental Law for Scientists and Engineers Professor Jana Milford, will teach how environmental laws and regulations are developed and implemented by legislatures, state and federal agencies and the courts. The course covers statutes and cases addressing air and water pollution, toxic substances, wastes, environmental assessment, and climate change. The course is designed for graduate students in engineering, environmental studies, and natural sciences. No legal background is required.
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"Besides Spanish, Quechua is the most widely spoken language in the Andes, with about seven to eight million speakers," says Leila Gómez, associate professor of Spanish and director of the Latin American Studies Center at CU Boulder. In spring 2021, CU Boulder will become the first institution in this part of the country to offer Quechua as an option to fulfill the university's undergraduate language requirement. This class is offered courtesy of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help preserve endangered languages.
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An Air Quality Feedback System May Promote Clean Cooking |
An electronic device might be able to change people's behavior and prompt household cooks to use clean cookstoves rather than the fires and smoky stoves they are used to. To explore the question, researchers at the Mortenson Center for Global Engineering, including graduate student Chantal Irigabiza, held workshops with primary household cooks in rural Rwanda to design what they believe might be behavior-changing technology.
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Mortenson Center in Global Engineering | University of Colorado Boulder |
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