ESW adviser, chapter receive awards at national conference
October 12, 2006
Thomas Colledge, assistant professor of engineering design, received "Best Adviser Award" for outstanding leadership, membership, outreach, teaching, and advising in his role as adviser of the Penn State chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) at the national organization's conference held recently at Iowa State University. At the conference, the Penn State ESW Chapter also was awarded the "Best Chapter Award" for outstanding leadership, membership, outreach, projects and curriculum development.
The purpose of ESW is to facilitate activities for Penn State students with a shared interest in development and implementation of appropriate engineered solutions in developing communities. The Penn State chapter has a number of projects going on each year involving developing communities overseas, as well as areas in the U.S. The club is led by Colledge, and has many other advisers that contribute to the various projects.
An example of one of the many projects is the El Salvador project, led by Mark Baker, who leads his team in assessing the water quality in a village in El Salvador. They already have taken trips to the village and have adequate knowledge of the water sources. They now are engineering practical ways to clean the water for the village's residents, who frequently are sick from the massive amount of bacteria and organisms in the water. Other projects are based in Kenya, with a solar powered windmill; Jamaica, which incorporates chicken waste into energy; and Kentucky, which is implementing small wastewater treatment systems.
Penn State ESW commits to reaching out to others who don't have the capability of improving their living conditions and surroundings themselves. The awards presented to them at the ESW National Conference show that Penn State's ESW chapter is making the world a better place by engineering practical solutions to solve other's problems.
Contact
Jamie Fisher
jlf374@psu.edu