VOLUME 13, NO. 3     June 2001

Award-winning projects solve problems on three continents

From left, Cosimini, Erickson, Mayer and Brito

From left, Cook, Churchill, Brian Gilman and Nancy Baccheschi at Costa Rica’s highest point

Malone and Cook with their liaison (Ana Maria Ortega O) and a firefighter at Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria International Airport

Student projects that focused on aquaculture and emergency communications in Costa Rica, hospital working conditions and access to history in London, and the impact of relocation in Thailand took the top prizes in the 2000 President’s IQP (Interactive Qualifying Project) Awards competition. The winners were selected from 43 projects submitted for consideration of the judges.

"These student projects found solutions over an extraordinary range of social issues," says Paul W. Davis, dean of interdisciplinary and global studies. "All shared a common outcome--they left the place where they worked better than they found it. Such outcomes and a particularly skillful and appropriate synthesis of social and technical thinking distinguished these five projects from the 200 other fine social-technical projects completed each year by WPI students. These students can be proud of their work and proud of their selection as President’s IQP Award finalists."

First prize went to Abel Alvarez-Calderon and Karen Kosinski for "Aquaculture Techniques Applicable to Developing Nations." Originally planned for Zimbabwe, the project was relocated because of political problems in the African nation. With only three weeks to regroup, Alvarez-Calderon and Kosinski reworked their project for Costa Rica, where they studied the country’s fish farmers to learn about fish feeding, development and breeding while researching smaller, more typical fish farms in rural areas of that country. They compiled information from surveys and field studies to produce a working manual for fish farmers that they hope to translate for use in other countries.

Two projects tied for second place. Shauna Malone, Jimmy Cook, Lucas Churchill and Felix Rieper suggested that the Costa Rican National Fire Department consider using a Geographic Information System (GIS) to overcome communications problems during emergencies. Joanna Cosimini, Daniel Erickson, Steven Meyer and Ruben Brito examined a stressful working environment at a London facility for the profoundly disabled and came up with recommendations to improve employee satisfaction.

Tied for third were Christopher Holt, Micah Kiffer and Keith Peterson for "Transcription and Cataloging of the Robinson Reports," and Justin Greenough, Stephanie Janeczko and Thomas Pfeiffer for "An Assessment of the Impacts of Relocation in a Thai Village."