Details:
Written by Rick Skwiot, Engineering Momentum Magazine
Designing and building better sewage facilities for students at the Mekelle Blind School in Ethiopia; devising improved means for producing nutritional food for Haitian infants; and refurbishing needed medical equipment for the Lwala Community Health Center in Kenya: These forays represent just part of the efforts of Washington University undergraduate engineering students to cross geographic and disciplinary borders, address critical human needs and, in the process, perhaps change the perceptions and culture of engineering education.
Through their campus chapters of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and Engineering World Health (EWH), students like Andrew Frangos are using engineering solutions to address critical social needs, both here and abroad. For his senior design project, which grew out of an EWB undertaking, Frangos, a systems engineering major, has been working with George Warren Brown School of Social Work’s International Programs Director and associate professor Gautam Yadama, both here and in India, studying why cleaner-burning cook stoves supplied to villagers there are frequently discarded after a short time.
“One of the things that attracted me to Engineers Without Borders was the political thinking about designs,” says Frangos. “A lot of times engineers pursue very challenging technical questions without necessarily pursuing whether or not the technology will be successfully used. This particular project is real exciting because it’s getting at that issue, figuring out how the technology you’re designing is going to be used, so you can have a positive impact.”
This broadened focus can be seen in the School of Engineering & Applied Science’s classrooms as well, according to EWH chapter president Sam Fok, a senior studying biomedical engineering and electrical engineering. “These classes are starting to crop up, where there’s more focus on real-world problems, global issues, sustainability and developing world technology. It’s one thing to learn about energy systems, but entirely different to learn about it in the context of sustainability and how you will implement systems with renewable energy sources.”
Fok is helping spearhead an EWH collaboration with the School of Medicine’s Global Health Scholars in Internal Medicine program and BJC Healthcare to locate, refurbish and deliver medical equipment to hospitals and clinics in Bhutan, Eritrea, Honduras, India and Kenya. “There is a lot of old equipment here with a potential to do some good where it is more needed,” says Fok. EWH plans first to provide reconditioned ultrasound equipment and a centrifuge to a rural Kenyan hospital.
Faculty advisor Robin Shepard, who teaches chemical engineering and has traveled with EWB students to Haiti for a project there, says that the more worldly and global approach to engineering education embodied in EWB and EWH is derived both from students and faculty.
“I have a new course this spring on sustainable technology for the global community. The primary reason I wanted to teach it was because of the students in Engineers Without Borders. I was inspired by them,” says Shepard. She, in turn, works to inspire her students to take a more “global” view of engineering.
“The experience with groups like Engineers Without Borders helps students see how engineering can function. It shows them they can make a difference. Engineers get the reputation of being sometimes not very social, which is not true, and also that they tend to think very much about their problems and not the people, which is sometimes true,” says Shepard. “This gives them a really good opportunity to see the people that they’re affecting and the lives that they can change with engineering.”
She says encouragement for a more encompassing engineering curriculum also comes from the Association of Professional Engineers’ accreditation evaluation, whose criteria include “if we’re using real-world examples and real-world bases.” Also, says Shepard, the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering “put worldwide applicability and sustainability among their primary goals.”
But it’s the fieldwork — such as the Haiti project — that reveals engineering’s human impact and helps bring the message home for students and instructors alike. “It’s a life-changing experience,” says Shepard. “You can’t overstate it.”
Those sorts of global experiences and opportunities appeal to today’s students. EWB’s work solidified Frangos’ engineering career choice.
“Coming into Washington University, I wasn’t sure if I would major in engineering,” says Frangos. “It seemed very focused on the mathematics and not as much about people. But the Engineers Without Borders chapter president at the time spoke at our freshman convocation and said things that made me change my mind: In engineering, you have a high amount of social responsibility and an opportunity to make an impact through the work you do. That idea has kept me going through engineering and kept me involved with Engineers Without Borders.”
Abstract:
Engineers Without Borders/Engineering World Health members traveled to Meds & Foods for Kids factory in Haiti and used technical writing skills to develop the maintenance schedules.
ImageUrl: http://admin.seas.wustl.edu/ContentImages/newsphotos/EWB_news_article_72.jpg
DateAdded: 5/26/2011