Humanitarian Engineering Graduate Info Session Webinar

Are you there?

Hello where are you?

Yeah, I'm here, but I'm putting my video of.-.

Oh, OK.

Maybe make it a little smoother.

Then we'll just put video on when we're the ones presented.

So using Chrome make a huge difference.

Oh, it has made a difference.

Yep.

Good perfect yeah that I I was asking like I said I asked my colleague and she's like oh make sure that they're using Chrome, which I didn't know was an issue 'cause I always just use Chrome so that's helping now.

Alright, so I'm gonna stop broadcasting myself, but if any questions come up I can start my own broadcast again. But I'm gonna. I mean like if there's any questions or if you guys need anything I will be on monitoring but I won't be in here.

Of course, thank you guys for doing this, I'm really excited.

Alright, so I will be in waiting in the wings if you need anything, but otherwise I'm going to stop broadcasting myself now.

Alrighty Thanks bye.

Oh yes, OK then. In that case I will stay on. I will introduce you and then do you want me to do anything else over the course of it or just the introductions?

OK, cool and then um, you want introductions on this slide or I know the next slide is the introduction slide.

I'm sorry.

OK.

OK, wonderful.

And then just like, do I just doctor Smith Doctor Bruce Dr. Tina in my pronouncing that right?

Oh OK, OK.

I'm not, I'm not a doctor, so you don't. I'm Ross. And I'm not a doctor, but you can just say Julia Rock, Yeah?

Oh OK, OK then first name is perfect.

That is that OK with you and you to let go one.

OK.

Is my background too messy?

No, I think it's fine and then one. How do I pronounce your last name just so I do it correctly?

Lucena.

Yep.

Louisiana OK, got it perfect.

Thank you.

Now of course.

Um?

So in any idea what happened to from the 450 interested people? We only got a handful.

Yeah.

By being so. One thing is because it is like a It's grenades and not asynchronous. It's just it could be there like 12 people might only be available at this time on this day. Uhm, but what we can actually do since this is being recorded is we can send this out to whoever didn't attend from the 4:50. I will say of the four of the 12 that are currently registered, 11 of the 12 our prospects for fall 2020. So that's really exciting versus the mall being like maybe freshman looking a couple years out.

I'm so you could see a turn around within the, you know after as a result of this, but part of it is just, you know, Friday afternoons people might be busy or because we definitely sent out three emails.

Across this week, so hopefully I mean and a lot of them opened so, but at the right side. Like I said, at least it's people that are looking for fall 2020 versus beyond that.

Yeah, thank you Molly.

Is this what we talking now being recorded?

I know it's going to start recording as soon as the event starts.

Oh, so it's automatically at 2:00 o'clock.

Yep Yep and then it will be in the settings when, uh, when you close down the event will be able to access it through the settings.

OK.

And the question from the participants will go into questions tab.

OK.

Correct, yes? And then if you approve it will move over to the chat so that everyone in that's participating can see it, so that's great what's coming through?

All right?

And one I will. I'll be watching the questions and I'll approve any that are generally applicable. But I'll also try to sort of group them.

Alright, my Clock, which is synchronized with the atomic Clock of the US government, says we got 15 seconds.

That's what the timer says at the top.

Yep, there's also a countdown at the top.

Where?

Oh

Right up the name of the web and R.

Right under the title.

Oh

It's cool, it's cool.

That's not synchronized with the atomic Clock, but anyway, we're going live now.

Hi everyone, thank you for joining us today. I'll give everyone a few seconds just in case their computers lagging to get on. But thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited to have you introducing our speaker shortly.

I see a participants now.

Yeah, wonderful. So as we I'm sure people will be joining on shortly, but let's just get started. My name is Molly Mcandrew. I am the assistant director of admissions for graduate recruitment. I'm going to introduce our three panels today. We have Jessica Smith who is a faculty member with humanitarian engineering. We have Julia Ross who is a faculty member of humanitarian engineering.

And wildly center. And if you guys want to whoever is going to go 1st, I'm going to go ahead and start my own broadcast and we'll get started with the presentation. Again, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hey Jessica.

Correct, it sounds like we might be having some issues with sound, so can someone in the audience just let us know if you're hearing us. Some people are not so please type in a question yes or no. Alright, so some people can hear us, so if you're not hearing us, you might need to fiddle with your sound.

Settings, uhm, so just keep me posted. If you still are having troubles and will try to troubleshoot, sorry go ahead.

Jessica, I'm sorry to interrupt. We still seem to be having some trouble with your feed specifically. Are people in the audience hearing Jessica or only me Julia?

It.

OK.

Thank you, Molly. Thank you. OK, so Jessica, it sounds like.

At least some folks are hearing you, so please continue and hopefully browser changes will fix other issues.

No questions so far. I did just post on that pole in the chat, so feel free to weigh in and if questions come up please don't hesitate to add them to the chat box an I will share them with the group.

And I just I just posted a poll just to gauge your interest in thesis versus non thesis. So please take a look and feel that in an and then any questions can come in again through the chat.

OK.

So currently.

We are undertaking a project with graduate and undergraduate students to train engineers to work with artisanal small scale gold mining communities in Colombia and Peru.

As or maybe you don't know that there are millions of people around the world that are engaged in this kind of practice as a form of livelihood. Actually, 90% of the people who work as miners, mining gold mine gold as either artisanal small scale coal mining, even though they only contribute to 20% of the goal that is produced in the world. There are a lot of people in a lot of communities whose livelihood depends on these practice.

And their significant health and safety risks associated with it, including the use of Mercury. But there is. There are many more, particularly when they work in as informal miners who are not being regulated by the government. An whether we like to admit it or not, we are all implicated because we all use gold in our cell phones. In our dental work, in our Treasury's in our retirement funds. So we are all implicated in these.

Um?

Their goal is an in everything that we hold dear. As I mentioned in electronics, jewelry, retirement phone, national treasures. So we decided that it was time for us as committed human it engineering and scientists to begin paying attention to these next.

Uh, some of the key challenges in this practice. Our environmental. So as I mentioned, Mercury and heavy metal pollution that comes with this practice. Significant forestation and water basin destruction. But there are also social issues associated with it. There is a great link between these kind of gold mining, an finance organized crime.

The communities where these practice state takes place find themselves with a significant human right violations, forced labor, child labor, human trafficking, sex slavery and so on.

They they fight for land is incredible. An usually results in violent conflict.

As well as there's economic issues, poverty, tax evasion, money laundering and so forth, you can see the pictures there.

Shows the environmental devastation and I recommend if you haven't seen, there is a great video at in the New York Times documentaries. Call how illicit goal end up in my iPhone. Highly recommended next.

OK, so the title of or the name of our project is responsible mining, receiving communities. And as you can see from the logs at the top, it involves great number of US, Colombian and Peruvian institutions. So we are affiliated with the US Air Force Academy with the University of Texas, Arlington with the University of Colorado Boulder in Colombia. We work closely with your CNS. You're not with me noodle, which is the largest University in Columbia with the deepest reach.

In the poorest communities in the country in Colombia and Peru we work with you tag and with the Pontificial Nursia Catolica and we also work with an NGO called Alliance for responsible mining.

The research goals of this project are listed in this slide, so we're very interested in many levels through our graduate student research.

To try to find out how this social, environmental and technical dynamics of asg em. That's short for artisanal, small scale gold mining systems in Colombia and Peru, intersect and influence each other.

Were interesting to see how people perceive risks and opportunities. We need to understand that from their perspective, so we as engineers and scientists committed to serve communities can actually address those risks and Opportunities.

Next

So now I'm going to give you an overview of our external partners an to help you here. Imagine you won't work in the future. Some of these external partners are affiliated with the artisanal mining project and others are not. We just beginning to build those relationships to benefit all our graduate students. So many of you might not know that Denver is home of the Posner Center for International Development. This is the largest hop.

Of NGOs and organizations dedicated to community development is also the home of Engineers Without Borders USA, the main headquarters or the national organizations. An other engineering related organizations such as bridges to Prosperity Elephant Energean more. We have a person who works in our division.

Name is Monika Kurtz, who is the stakeholder relations manager, and she works in this place once a week, helping us identify projects for graduate students and practical practical oppurtunity. So this is a great place, and we're just beginning to expand our partnerships with them.

The MIT lab.

Is a great partner dies?

Is one of the leading design for development labs in the country?

Um and they joined us in the artisanal mining project in Columbia. There are specialists in social innovation and entrepreneurship in marginalized communities, and now they are putting a lot of their efforts and energies in working with artisanal mining communities in Colombia and Peru. What we like to do with them, and hopefully with your involvement as future graduate students, is to actually work in the projects that they identify. Working with the communities.

And for example, they have a great fellowship opportunity that is available for graduate students outside of MIT, like the ones that are going to come to mind where you can actually help them monitor and evaluate those projects.

Next

Uhm, this is one of our favorite partners. Will never see me nude videos in Columbia. This University has a central mission in social justice. An as I mentioned before, the deepest reach into the poorest communities in Columbia. This picture that you see is there scientific part for social innovation and these these team of people that you see in the picture work very closely with us.

Creating linkages an outlets for our humanity engineering and science projects. We are working for example with them right now on projects related to stem education in rural communities. Social innovation in artisanal mining communities. We just send out a proposal that we help get funded to teach engineering in Venezuelan refugee camps in Columbia. Columbia now has the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. With millions of Venezuelans living in Colombia.

And many of these people want to learn engineering, so we want to be part of that. We also have identifying new problem areas to explore with them, including those that are deeply related to our new Masters program in landslide hazard mitigation. So water remediation in farming communities and low-cost instrumentation for rural communities.

Next

Another partner is the University. I'm as soon as the Columbia Medigene. Those of you who might not now imagine is the city in the world with the best weather is called the city of eternal spring is wonder if it's a wonderful place. We work with them in projects with mining communities, but we want to start with them. New areas and new projects in community based research in all three tracks of our program. The picture that you see there is a.

Group of our students and faculty who were there. We spent great part of July of 2019, working with artisanal mining communities.

So once the University in Wales in the UK would beginning to create this partnership is a great University located, and when the most beautiful coastlines in the UK in Wales.

Many of you might not know that Swancey was the central place where most of the cold that fuel the.

British Industrial Revolution came from.

Our car key partner there is the Masters in sustainable engineering management for International Development Program. We are very good friends with the director and the faculty in that. In that program we're looking forward to create course exchanges in.

Also, where students can go there and take classes such as those listed there in the bullet points.

Next is western Colorado University. This will be an option that is actually closer to home. Western Colorado University is located in Gunnison in the center.

Of our beautiful state right next to Crested Butte ski resort.

And with them we want to explore practicum and thesis opportunities on sustainability and mountain communities. They have a Center for.

Um transitions in mountain communities. So they have great projects and programs related to how climate change effects mountain communities.

I know that many of our applicants are very interested in very passionate and committed to actually explore.

The concept of the impacts of climate change on mountain communities. Also, they have proposal future Partnership for research and study in Mexico and we are looking forward to create a joint fellowship or students from both universities actually do research.

Uh, on either the geological dimensions of any project related to these mountain communities or their geophysical dimensions, or the environmental engineering dimensions.

Are there any questions?

Here we have one one how would the community collaboration in Colombia, for example, fit into the graduate coursework?

So you will fit in in one of two ways. It could be part of the practicum, depending on how much time this student has to spend in Columbia, so it could be a summer practicum, or it could be a semester log practical with the understanding that will put the student behind in the course work, so that would be one way the other way would be through a thesis work.

Um and the other way would be through research field trips that could be associated with artisanal mining problem project.

OK, that's all we have at the moment.

OK, so now what I want to do, yeah?

Upon we we have we have another question. I'm Brian, I will follow up with you via chat.

So go ahead 1.

OK.

Alright, so now what I want to do is I want to give you a snapshot of careers in human tan engineering and science. I recommend strongly. You guys get your hands on that book that I put their solving problems that matter and getting paid for it. This book was edited by two very good friends of our project, can jet meta and Rachel's on back an inside the book there are about 100.

Profiles of scientists and engineers who have dedicated their careers to humanitarian endeavors. So 1st I'm going to give you an example of three cases or 4 cases of students who have graduated from minds with a minor in humanitarian engineering. So you get a sense of where those students are when those students graduated. We did not have the Masters so they didn't have the luxury and the privilege of our upcoming students to actually take a full Fledge Masters.

In humanitarian engineering and science, but you can see where their commitment to humanitarian engineering size had taken them taking them. And then I'm going to show you some profiles coming out of this book.

So the first one is list Tom and she graduated 2018. She's a process engineering Procter and Gamble. She was also one of the lead players in the basketball team, hence the picture. So her pathway, she graduated in chemical engineering. She actually did her senior designing chemical engineering in related to humanity in engineering and she also completed minoring him. Anytime engineering, she's an engineer, Procter and Gamble where she coaches low income kids to play basketball and mentor.

Foster children, so a lot of her service, volunteer pay pay time she dedicated to humanitarian endeavors and her goal is actually to go back to Graduate School. She is very interested in learning how to design feminine hygiene products for women in the developing world.

Michaela pit dresses is one of our students. I think you saw one of her pictures earlier. She is now finishing her Masters in hydrogeology at the University of Texas, so she was with us as a undergraduate in Geophysical Engineering and she data miner in humanitarian engineering at minds. She was also involved in Geo Geo scientists Without Borders in the summer 2017 doing a project that's.

An organization that were growing at mines and that presents a lot of opportunities for projects. Now she's doing research in Bangladesh, mapping aquifers around poor communities and also research in Alaska. Understanding permafrost thaw under the water in lagoon. She has been offered a position as a hydrogeologist at a company called LR water in Austin, TX.

Another one of our favorite people who are graduated is David LaPorte, who is now. He graduated as a geological engineering 2018. He's now with Confort consultants in Portland, OR so. David got a bachelors in geological engineering from South Dakota School of mines. He did his Masters in geological engineering at mines and he was the first person to complete a thesis in geological engineering related to humanitarian engineering.

Online landslide reduction in vulnerable communities. He also served as engineering and social justice teaching assistants, where he did an incredible job mentoring and helping us with the teaching of that course. And now he's one of the leaders. You WB leader officers in Oregon. He's actually the state representative to the national organization.

Now this set of slides are for people who are profile come out of that book. So I just want to make it clear that they did not graduate from mines, but I just to give you a sense of who they are, where they are now, roughly what kind of salary they're making, their passions, and how they have turned a career in engineering like Sutay Buskerud who graduated with degrees in civil, environmental engineering and human it engineering from.

Penn State she work as a consultant and then she decided that she wanted to work in her passion, which is providing for security for poor communities. So she she joined the UN World Food Program next.

Rick Johnston similar kind of deal. He did a masters and PhD in environmental engineering and he immediately started working at UNICEF in Bangladesh. Then he went to the Suites File Institute of Technology and now he is working and I imagine he's a very busy guy giving what is happening around the world with the World Health Organization as a technical officer in water supply and sanitation.

Text.

Jennifer Schmitz Sleigh

She graduated from Lee High University as a civil engineer and he began to work immediately with a US Army Core Engineers 1st as a project manager in humanitarian assistance in Serbia, Albania, Kedougou, Kenya and then she became program manager for the Europe district and currently she's one of the leading project engineers at the US McCoy engineers but very dedicated to Lee. Still this projects to have community buy in.

And participation from communities, particularly big civil infrastructure projects such as those that are the responsibility of the US Army Core Engineers.

Steve Dennis. He is a corporate social responsibility.

Salt and for the CSR Training Institute in is Africa.

Um, depending on on on the clients that they get his salary varies per month, so he was very honest about that. He's passion is to train organizations on how to engage everyone, particularly local communities. An external funders. And as you can see he has a pathway that took him from civil engineering into international relations. Then he work actually for Doctors Without Borders in really tricky areas and.

And sites in the world. And now he is at the CSR Training Institute in his Africa.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the funding opportunities that are available and we're continuing to build more and more of these so some of you might know that we had a deadline that passed for what we call. This showed scholarships. These are the people who we believe represent.

The the values and principles that we want to highlight for our program. The deadline passed, but we expect to have these scholarships available also next year. We also have traveled scholarships for research and conferences, so these funds come from a number of sources and they can take you as far as the project that we have in Colombia and Peru to spend the summer with us. Work with communities or if you want to be closer to home, we have scholarships that can take you to the EWB Conference.

If that's where you want to go, or the IEEE global humanitarian.

Technology conference and so on. Will currently seeking TA positions, so that's those. Budget requests are in the works. And of course there's always opportunity for you to work on faculty research project with other with other faculty, but we that's going to require you being here an actually getting to know the faculty and so on.

Yeah.

Hey one, we have a quick question. Does mines participate in the Peace Core Coverdale program?

Actually, that is something that we are going to build. I'm hoping to have that.

Cordaville fellowship with the with the peace core in place in a year or a year and a half.

Is a great question?

So at this point, our formal presentation is complete an we're just here to your question.

I am going to add one more chat up Olin at the chat. Um about other disciplinary tracks. It might be interesting so people lookout for that'll take me just a minute to add those questions.

Oh

The headline.

There was, there's one more question from about how long does the program typically take?

Yes, so it depends on which track you're doing. If you're doing a thesis or the non thesis option, so reminders at the non thesis option is uhm just course work that can be done in one year. If you schedule your classes with care, the goal is for that to be a one year program in order to do a thesis that takes 2 years. So it depends on which path would like to take the great question.

If there are current mind students on the call, we also, um, you can count up to two of your undergrad courses toward the Masters degree, and we're also willing to accept transfer credits from students coming from other places.

Three participants from very dear states to Professor Smith, so we got Brian Rivers from Minnesota.

Oh

We we have Jessica Savage from Michigan.

We have Mateo Rojas from California.

So we welcome your questions and Cassidy Jones. Join us from Montana.

Well, we're waiting. I'm under signal that we have an email address for the program on the bottom of this slide. If you send it to that, it gets to us. You can also use our personal emails that we included at the beginning, or that you can find on the website.

In the website address is there on the lower left.

There's another.

Oh, here's another, I'll go ahead 1.

Yeah, I'm gonna prove it.

Is HEA qualifying program for the western regional graduate program?

Matt

I think we I don't know if Molly is still on the call sheet handles.

Yep, I'm here. Um, so at the moment, uh, humanitarian engineering is not partner with the programs through minds that updates every year, so I definitely check back on that and I will contact you with that information tail.

We have another question about the jirari require the GRA or admission requirements for the HD program.

Great um so the jirari uhm. I would want to double check just to make sure we need it, especially for students who are proposing a thesis we can be more flexible. If you're not pursuing a thesis for students who are already enrolled at minds. We don't require it at all.

And then, in terms of other admissions requirements, untypically the application for mines requires through layers recommendation as well as a personal statement and a resume, and then our online applecare application is online at mines.edu/graduate admissions.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the group?

If it sounds good with our panelists, will stay on for the next few minutes just in case. Questions are people are still in the middle of typing out their questions. If you don't have any other questions, I would just recommend. Again doubting down that email address with bottom of your screen, just in case you're like me 10 minutes from now, you're like, oh, I should have asked that question. Otherwise it feel free to lagaf. Thank you so much for joining us today and thank you to our panelists for answering questions and talk a little bit more about this program. We hope this was helpful and we look forward to seeing your application in the future.

Open grammar.

This thank you.

Molly, can you? Can you tell the participants before they sign out? Where is this web and are going to be made available in case they want to revisit it later or send their friends to it?

Yeah, what we can do. So unless it's we can definitely look to post it on our website. I would just have to find out a little bit more information about where that will be hosted. However, what we can do is will send a follow up to everyone who participated A in within an email will have a link that you can revisit or of like one set forward it out to your friends who might be interested in the program as well.

Thank you.

Oh

Oh OK, we have quite a few that just popped up.

Great.

Uh, OK, what types of work do you do in Peru? This is coming from Brian or recently evacuated. People volunteer.

Great, I'll speak to the question about buddy.

So improve we have actually two ongoing big projects. They are related in topic, but they're not related in finances.

So we have work, graduate work with artisanal small scale mining communities in places like ***** an I want to say moderated yours because that's why we wrote in the NSF proposal but moderate videos is becoming a trickier place to go in terms of safety. So I don't. I don't want to promise my radios as a site and the other project that we have in Peru and this is with our leading faculty from geological engineering.

Call Santi, he's director of the Center for sustainable mining with a University in Peru. They will never see Anna, so not listen. I will steam an with them. They're doing. Paul's anti would be the key person to actually answer these. These better than I can but there is a whole range of projects that involve of course community participation and not necessarily in artisanal mining.

But also large mining projects that definitely require community participation, so those are the two that I know.

And that project also works on issues that are related to those different kinds of mining, but our mining themselves. So for example, there's a lot of work being done on agriculture with that group.

Also, thank you for your service in the peace core and I'm sorry that you had to be evacuated. Referred from lots of people in this situation.

Oh, what happened great we can say we can send you if you send us an email we can put you in touch with Passante directly and send you the address for that center.

And Brian, I imagine that your Spanish is very good. After having worked in Peru, so that the team from that product Apple Santee leads always looks for people who who speaks.

Peruvian Spanish and understands the local jargon as well as who have had extensive community related experiences in country.

Thank you.

OK, here's another question I've heard a lot about mining thesis and research projects. Are there any for water?

Lots, uhm, so one of one of the IT. It's a half complaint and a half compliment about our environmental engineering program is that it is so focused on water? Uhm, that is one of the big specialties of the.

Faculty in that Department.

And we also on our own project. We have people working on water, mostly in terms of thinking about remediation, not in terms of kind of sanitation and hygiene.

Well, I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit about the watch simple then maybe that.

Yeah.

Thanks everyone by.

No.