The role of engineers in contributing to global poverty reduction and in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is evolving. Typically, the engineer’s role in addressing these challenges has been confined to community-, regional-, or national-scale service interventions and technology design and development. However, after fifty years of such approaches, over half the world’s population still lives on less than $5.50 a day. Conventional engineering approaches are largely inappropriate given the structural constraints and global drivers that perpetuate poverty.

The emerging field of Global Engineering can help address these issues as a discipline that educates students to be prepared to solve engineering and science problems within the socioeconomic, environmental and political constraints often encountered in lower-resource settings. Global engineers must be taught to consider the historical and present causes of persistent poverty.

A number of universities in the United States have established or are working to establish programs in Global Engineering. Building on these efforts and programs, a framing for Global Engineering has recently been proposed by the Mortenson Center, building on over 15 years of curricular efforts.

Read the the article out April 30, 2021: A Body of Knowledge and Pedagogy for Global Engineering, where eight Mortenson Center faculty, staff and PhD student lay out their proposal.

Mortenson Center student Denis Macharia is an environmental and geospatial scientist and the Weather and Climate Thematic Lead at the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) in the NASA-SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa project in Nairobi, Kenya. There, he leads a team of specialists and data scientists working on various climate resilience-related topics in the region.

Denis' current research integrates data from earth observations, models, and ground measurements to develop geospatial products and services that provide information for climate resilience interventions in a range of areas in natural and social systems. His research is currently providing information to decision makers in water and food security resilience initiatives across Eastern Africa.

Read the paper Mapping Climate Vulnerability of River Basin Communities in Tanzania to Inform Resilience Interventions, published in the journal MDPI.

Denis recently shared his findings with Engineering for Change from newly published research on how basin communities in rural Tanzania benefit from climate vulnerability mapping. Overall, vulnerability maps from the study, regular consultations and engagement with local communities and district administrators provided critical input to the selection of adaptation options that aligned well with community expectations. The maps provided an independent validation of a-priori selected districts, and further evidence that a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria can be used for prioritizing development assistance effectively.

Congratulations to Kevin Pulley who was voted in as the next MCGE Student Representative. Kevin will hold a voting position on the Executive Committee and will be integral in leading student events, discovering opportunities and supporting the MCGE student body.

Kevin dressed in spirit at the most recent student event where he helped to organize a fun and safe Easter get-together.

Katherine Chambers - PhD in Civil Engineering

Gabriella Franchois - MS in Civil Engineering

Kaitlin Mattos - PhD in Environmental Engineering

Maja Sagaser - MS in Architectural Engineering

Lauren ‘LP’ Panasewicz graduated from Gonzaga University in 2009, with a BS in Civil Engineering. In 2011, she completed an MA in Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder and earned the Certificate from the Mortenson Center. At CU Boulder, She held a research position with Scott Summers and Angela Bielefeldt on the Filtron, a role for which she said was a perfect fit for her. After graduation, she moved to Alaska to work on water treatment, wastewater treatment, and water distribution systems in rural villages at CRW Engineering Group. She worked across the state on "dire sanitation needs" projects as identified by the EPA and USDA Rural Development.

In 2016, LP joined the Range of Motion Project (ROMP), a global, healthcare non-profit that helps amputees receive high-quality prosthetic care and follow-up that they might not be able to otherwise access. She is currently ROMP's Director of Development and is in charge of fundraising efforts, grants, events, and strategic planning and partnerships for long-term growth and expansion in Latin America and the U.S.

LP’s MCGE education prepared her for the design aspects of her work and the cultural challenges that she has encountered. ROMP builds sustainable healthcare models in their countries of operation through the training and hiring of local staff and with a focus on community needs. In her studies at the Mortenson Center, LP learned that program and project participants must be invested for a program to be successful; the patients at ROMP are committed to improving their health and mobility.

 email: sarah.goodroad@colorado.edu

Jodi Balster is a Global Environmental Engineering Professional Master's student at the University of Colorado Boulder. She currently works as an educator while earning her teaching credential from the CU Center for Learning and Teaching.

After completing her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Woodbury University in Burbank, CA., Jodi worked as a designer for Egan|Simon Architecture where she focused on her passion for developing housing and services for the homeless community in Los Angeles, CA. Working with this vulnerable population inspired Jodi to seek out a sustainable civil engineering graduate program focused on humanitarian aid to help her take her work to the next level. After much searching, she found the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and today, during her second semester, knows she could not have found a better place to be. The flexibility of the program has allowed Jodi to focus on her passion for architecture, urban design, humanitarian aid, and education in addition to the fundamentals of civil engineering and foreign aid. Jodi plans to leverage her education through the Mortenson Center and become an advocate for the housing needs of low-income communities.

Kearney Newman will graduate this week from CU Boulder with a Master's of Science in Technology, Media, and Society: Information and Communication for Development. Kearney grew up in Alaska and graduated from the University of Oregon in 2017, with a Bachelor of Arts in international studies and a minor in anthropology. After graduating, she moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked for a large international nonprofit focused on education and cultural exchange. She then enrolled in the ATLAS program at CU Boulder in 2019, as a student in the Information and Communication Technology for Development track. As part of this track, she took the Mortenson Center course Global Development for Engineers.

Kearney found studying alongside engineers in MCGE to be a great learning experience because people with more technical backgrounds exposed her to different perspectives. She enjoyed Mortenson Center Associate Director Dr. Rita Klees’s approach to the subject matter so much that she became the teaching assistant for the course in fall 2020. Kearney helped the MCGE cohort navigate the practicum application process this spring while working a practicum of her own at Internews as part of their Global Humanitarian team. She will join Internews full time as a Senior Business Development Associate with the Global Development team after graduation. In this role, she will be writing proposals to USAID and the State Department on democracy, human rights, and governance. She also recently received the 2021 CU ATLAS Distinguished Graduate Group Collaboration Award for exemplifying the ATLAS spirt with creativity, capability, and collaboration.

Rebecca Ventura is a second year PhD student in Civil Engineering at CU Boulder. Born and raised Burr Ridge, a western suburb of Chicago, Rebecca graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC) in 2017, with a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering. Following a gap year spent traveling around Europe and working for the Women in Engineering office at UIUC, Rebecca accepted a PhD position in Civil Engineering at CU Boulder in 2019, where she is also completing the Global Engineering Certificate with the Mortenson Center.

Rebecca is co-advised by Mortenson Center Associate Director Amy Javernick-Will and Assistant Professor Sherri Cook. Her research interests include motivating communities to adopt improved sanitation access and use in both rural and urban contexts. Outside of coursework and research Rebecca enjoys serving on the CO WASH conference committee including leading the first Translation team. She has also enjoyed co-leading Spanish Club with mechanical engineering student Paula Perez, providing a safe space for MCGE students to strengthen their Spanish-speaking skills in a friendly and casual environment. After completing her PhD, Rebecca aspires to be a professor working in areas of sanitation and urban development in the Latin American context.