Grant sends applicants abroad

By Aiselle De Vera

For the first time, the Center for Science, Technology and Society gave undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to apply for grants last fall in order to fund projects benefiting people around the globe.

The grant program that was previously limited to faculty, encouraged students to submit proposals that mirrored the center's mission, "to understand and enable the innovative application of science and technology for global human benefit."

The center received 13 proposals, eight from faculty and five from students. Accepted student proposals could receive a maximum amount of $3000, while faculty could receive up to $5000. Of the faculty proposals, six received grants while all the student proposals were given grants. CSTS originally allotted $25,000 to the grant program but gave almost $30,000 in the end. In total, approximately $10,000 went to students while $20,000 was given to faculty.

"The initial impetus to develop a grant program from the center was based on recognition of the co-managers of the center that many of the senior projects being done in engineering really fit into the mission of the center," said Dr. Jack Gilbert, director of Sponsored Research in CSTS and the professor and chair of the Chemistry and Biochemistry department.

The grant program was open to all students, not only those in the school of engineering.

It was important for the center to encourage research opportunities in order to expose students to how science and technology relate to society, said Radha Basu, the managing director for the CSTS and the driving force behind the implementation of the grant program according to Dr. Gilbert.

One of the student groups that received the grant consisted of four senior engineering majors: Laura Skinner, Brie Rust, Spencer Ambauen and Erica Fieger. Their proposal, which is also their senior design project, was inspired by the senior design project of a group from the previous year that had built a 150-square-feet residential building in Northern Ghana.

"Now we're taking up where they left off and advancing it further," said Ambauen.

The group used the same principles but geared the design towards being able to construct bigger buildings. The project emphasized local materials found in Northern Ghana such as laterite clay and concrete to create earth crete bricks, which were cheap and durable, instead of the common sand crete bricks which consist of twice as much cement and cost more.

"We're taking the most optimal design and then we're applying it to societies and villages where they don't have a lot of money to spend on their buildings," said Skinner.

The group wanted to introduce a cost-effective and sustainable building design, said Ambauen.

Over the winter break, the four headed to Northern Ghana, where the group worked closely with Ghana government agencies.

The group constructed two buildings, an 800-square-foot library and an onion storage building. The library was constructed in Ganbibgo. The onion storage building had the same dimensions and was constructed simultaneously with the library but was located in another village, Zebilla, which was 45 minutes away.

"Our whole goal of this project was to help the community progress," said Rust.

With this goal in mind, the group also trained the locals living there to understand the building process and equipped them with the knowledge to construct buildings on their own. Locals are expected to finish the library in about a month while the onion storage building will take up to two months.

The group asked for $3000 from CSTS and received that amount. The money purchased materials for the building and covered some of the travelling costs and accommodation. The group also received funding from other sources to support their project.

Justin Peel, a senior physics major and fellow grant recipient, is interested in the research of using organic polymers in solar cells instead of the current, expensive silicon ones. Organic polymers would also potentially provide cleaner energy.

For the last year and a half, Peel has been working with different chemicals to find one that would produce a stable current when light is directed and captured by it. Peel started with the chemical MEH-PPV but now uses poly-3-hexylthiophene, which works better, said Peel.

Before receiving the funding last fall, Peel's research team made a breakthrough in which they were able to increase the decay of the solar cell from 30 minutes to 30 days before it died. "If we can stabilize that then there's great potential for clean energy," said Peel.

In the proposal to the center, Peel requested around $1400 to subsidize the research. "We ended up getting a vast majority of it," said Peel. "With this money, we have been able to bring the research up to date by getting better equipment."

On a different continent, a group of four graduate students, Thomas Adamek, Vincent Howard, Steven Li and Paul Mahecek from the Department of Civil Engineering, will be using bathymetry to measure sediment levels. They are responding to requests from the University of Central America to evaluate El Salvador's Lempa river. The gathered information will help determine where to dredge out the sediment. Changes in levels of sediment can cause flooding affecting the communities living near the river.

The project involves the use of equipment called a multi-beam sonar that sweeps along the water's surface, shooting multiple beams. The length of time the beam takes to hit the bottom and return will be used to calculate the distance from the water's surface to the bottom.

The group requested $7000, but only received $2500 since there was a maximum for student proposals. They will turn toward other sources of funding.

"The Dean of Engineering said that he would match us for the CSTS grant," said Li. The rest of the funding will probably come from the Robotic Exploration Technologies in Astrobiology program that supports research in marine and ecological projects, said Mahecek.

The other grant recipients were Ryan Clark, Molly Dunphy and Mindy Yoneshige, a group from the Department of Civil Engineering, that will develop a self-sufficient water filtration system for rural populations starting with a community in Honduras.

Meanwhile, the future of the CSTC grant program is uncertain. The continuation of this grant program depends on funding.

"Our hope is to make this an annual program," said Gilbert. "You have to find donors who are interested in what the program is doing."

Contact Aiselle De Vera at adevera@scu.edu.