E23: Engineering a Cultural Connection | Sophia Gross | Sarah Gardner | Engineers Without Borders

Jon Cain: What can happen when students who are driven to help others put their skills and passion into practice? For six Worcester Polytechnic Institute students, a weeklong visit to Ecuador was the result of years of preparation. The trip in May 2025 was all about working with people in a small community in the Andes Mountains. The goal was to address structural issues with the water system and improve the quality of the water the residents rely on. The result was progress made in addressing the water challenge and connections made between the students and people thousands of miles away. Hi, I'm Jon Cain from the Marketing Communications Division at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This is the WPI Podcast, your home for news and expertise from our classrooms and labs. Today we're talking about an important project being done by WPIs Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. It's one of more than 200 student clubs and organizations on campus. My guests here in the WPI Global Lab in the Innovation Studio are two of the six students with Engineers Without Borders who made the trip to Ecuador. Sarah Gardner is a chemical engineering and physics student. Sophia Gross is an electrical and computer engineering student. She goes by Sophie. She wrote a journal about the WPI chapter's time in Ecuador, which you can read in the fall/winter 2025 edition of the WPI Journal. That's the university's magazine, and it's available now around campus andmonline at wpi.edu. Sarah and Sophie, thanks for being on the WPI podcast.

Sarah Gardner: Yeah. Thanks so much for having us. 

Sophie Gross: Thanks for having us. 

Cain: It's a pleasure. Um, so why don't we start, I'd love to just ask and get the broad overview of what is Engineers Without Borders?

Gross: Engineers Without Borders is an organization that partners with communities, both in the US and around the world, and works with those communities to help them meet their basic human needs through engineering solutions. The student chapters and professional chapters around the country work with those communities to meet different needs, some of which are water supply needs, sanitation, civil works, energy needs, and other things along those lines. 

Cain: Sounds like some really important work and I wanted to just sort of mention at first that global experiential project-based learning is really a key element at WPI, with around 85% of our students going off campus at some point to complete a required academic project.

Um, the university has more than 50 project centers on six continents to support that work. Now, Engineers Without Borders is a student organization, basically an extracurricular. So that's on top of the academic work that I just mentioned. Given all that, how did you decide to get involved with Engineers Without Borders?

Gardner: For me, personally, one of the biggest reasons that I decided to get involved is also related to one of the biggest reasons that I decided to come to WPI, I'm really, really excited to be able to do all this different work abroad and to be able to utilize the skills that I'm learning in the classroom to help people all around the world. Um, and it's been really amazing to be able to have the experience to travel not only within my classes and in an academic setting, but also as part of a student-led organization. 

Gross: Yeah, I have a very similar experience. Coming into WPI, I was very interested about the applications of engineering work and how engineering can be used to help people. And so coming into my freshman year, I searched out organizations that I felt like did that, and obviously Engineers Without Borders came up. 

Cain: That's great. I wanted to learn a little bit more now about the project that the WPI chapter has been working on in Ecuador. What's the project and, and how long has it been going on?

Gross: Yeah, so the project that we are working on is with a community called  Shungubug Grande, in Ecuador, and we are working to upgrade their 50-year-old water supply system. Over time, it's just become degraded and needs a lot of upgrades and repairs, as well as solutions to remove harmful contaminants within the water that can make the community members sick.

Cain: How did the project come about? How did you learn about it? 

Gardner: Yeah, so the really awesome thing about Engineers Without Borders as an international organization is that communities like the one that we're working with actually apply to kind of be on the list for chapters to pick up. It's really a community-led and advocated for project. So they actually reached out to Engineers Without Borders saying, hey, you know, our local municipality actually isn't able to help us with these things that we need help with. Is there any way that a chapter would be able to pick that up and be able to help us with that? 

Gross: So back in the spring of 2023, we were looking into various projects that were open for a chapter to pick up. We kind of looked through all the different projects that were available, did research into what might be involved in what they needed, and eventually voted on Shungubug Grande  as the project that we would apply to and then in the summer we got approved and started the process of working towards our first trip there. The first trip we went on was in October, and so that was the assessment trip. 

Cain: So 2023, you've sort of got, uh, started in earnest working on this. And the trip that we're gonna be talking about shortly was in May of 2025. I imagine there's a lot of prep work that is required. What were some of those things that you had to do between the start of the project and, uh, getting to Ecuador in May of 2025? 

Gardner: So the average Engineers Without Borders Project actually lasts about five years. So these are pretty long-term projects, which is really awesome because that means that you get to establish a long-term relationship with the community and they're able to establish a long-term relationship with us. All projects start off with an assessment trip, so that was that trip that we were talking about in October 2023. So basically, that was our first time going down to the community. Meeting all the people for the first time, understanding their needs, understanding what their daily life looked like, and being able to collect our initial technical data on what the system actually looked like. So from that trip, following that, we did a ton of research here on campus on what solutions would be best and what different ways that we could address the problems that they kind of communicated to us while we were down there. We did some prototyping research. We did research in the lab. We did a lot of just reading papers, and we did a lot of research on how solutions such as these can be implemented in very rural areas. The community is about halfway up a mountain. They have some access to electricity, um, but not a whole ton. So there's not a lot of resources that we can really work off of. So it presents a really interesting engineering challenge of how we can work to improve their system as well as clean their water without having access to a lot of the things that we utilize, you know, here in the United States. So, after our assessment trip and after communicating, uh, with the community. Throughout the time, in between our two trips, some of the main problems that we really identified were not necessarily related to the community's quantity of water. So, they were getting enough water for the most part. However, it was more of a water quality issue, so we found high levels of phosphates, nitrates and coliforms within their water supply. The goal of a lot of these catchment based systems, which is what the community has is that they're collecting groundwater.

So they're set up near sources of water. One of the sources. Marco Pata is right next to a river, but the water that's actually collecting is water that's coming through the hillside. So these catchments are not actually in the river, but rather on the sides and more built up against the hillsides. And so the goal is to be able to collect groundwater because that water has already been naturally filtered in some ways by the soil. So, what's really great about that is a lot of times we don't end up seeing a lot of those contaminants like we were unfortunately seeing, so from that, we were guessing that there was some issues with the structural integrity of the catchments and the tanks, meaning that contaminated surface water was actually getting into the system. So this water is running along their agriculture, picking up different chemicals from fertilizers, picking up different chemicals from, you know, their livestock as well. And then that's getting into the water system. So our biggest goal on our first implementation. trip, which is what we did in May of 2025, was to be able to improve the structural integrity of the catchments themselves to hopefully prevent a lot of that surface water from getting into the catchments.

Cain: Gotcha. So, and then in May of, uh, 2025, there was six of you that, that went and, and really had sort of a, a week long, um, trip to do some of this work. Walk me through, uh, the trip and, and the work that you did. 

Gross: Yeah, so the first kind of category of work that we did on the trip was construction work. In the community, there are two separate water systems. And each system has a collection source with catchments, and then it has piping that leads to various tanks that collect and store the water. In one of the systems, we started off with having a contractor go down and create what's called a infiltration gallery, and that's essentially a horizontal, well that goes into a hillside and water can trickle out of the hillside and then into the catchment. So we had that be built so they could have access to more water from that collection area. And then we also built a new collection tank at that site. In that same system, we implemented upgrades to their storage tank. So those included waterproofing the walls of the tanks, so there weren't any leaks which had been occurring at that tank. We implemented a stainless steel lid and new valves so the water can be controlled coming in and going out and having the community be able to take care of the tank in a better way than they had been before. 

Gardner: So going off of what Sophie said about the Chililin system, that's what had the infiltration gallery. We also did work on the Marco Pata system. There's a total of six catchments there. We did a lot of work while we were there trying to figure out some of the differences between the catchments and which ones would kind of be best to approach in terms of. Fixing, repairing, et cetera. One of the things that we did is we worked very closely with a contractor in country, and one of the things that he recommended is that rather than repairing the catchments, that we actually rebuild some of them to ensure that we're not adding any structural issues while fixing them. So basically, while we were down there, we were supervising the contractors as they expanded one of the catchments. It was very, very small, but it was located in an awesome spot for us to be able to collect even more water. We also took a lot of data on the remaining catchments to kind of determine what our next steps will be. We didn't have the funds on this trip to be able to complete all the catchments that we originally intended to, so we took a lot of technical measurements and things along those lines while we were there so that we can kind of determine back here what catchments we wanna end up fixing. There's two specific catchments that are already located in very, very good positions for them to be able to collect clean water from the hillsides, but they're built a little wonky. So those are likely going to be the ones that on our next trip in the future will go down to be able to completely rebuild.

Gross: So the last piece of construction that we worked on on this trip was completely upgrading the other storage tank in the community. This tank was one of the structures that the six of us students who went down actually got to work on ourselves, and we did a lot of the same upgrades as the other tank, including the waterproofing, adding new valves, new piping, a new lid. When we were doing this work, we were working with the community members a lot.

Gardner: What was really awesome about that is I think it's a really great example of the collaborative aspect of Engineers Without Borders. So while we were down there, we were working hand in hand with the community. So there was actually one point that we were gonna do things one way and we were setting it up, we were getting it ready, but then one of the community members was like, no, I think that this way will be easier. And we're like, okay, awesome. Like show us how to do it, teach us. And so he was totally right. It was a ton easier and it worked just as well. So the community was learning from us and we were learning from the community and it just created a really, really awesome atmosphere to be working in. And it was one of the things that the community also said near the end of our trip that they really, really appreciated and really, really enjoyed.

Cain: That's fantastic. Sophie you mentioned there's other aspects of the trip too. Do, do you want to get into, um, some of that? 

Gross: Yeah, so one of the other aspects that we were focused on in this trip was having some of the community members be able to learn how to test their own water, as Sarah talked about earlier, we had seen coliforms and nitrates and phosphates in their water, and we wanted measurements of those nitrates and phosphates more frequently than we would be able to do. Ourselves by going down there. So in order to have more frequent data collection, we decided that we would teach some of the women in the community how to do their own testing. And so, we brought down these testing kits that included little droppers and vials and we took a few days during the trip throughout the week to work with these women, and we first started with showing them how to do the testing and having a translator tell them what each step was. So they were able to hear what we were doing, why we were doing it, as well as seeing it in real time. And then once they had done that, they were super excited. They already wanted to try it. So we had them do the testing themselves, but we were telling them what to do step by step. We had also prepared an instruction manual that had all of the instructions for how to do the testing as well as visualizations. And by the last day we had them just do the testing all by themselves and they were very confident in it and we were able to do it and since the end of the trip, we've had them test their water multiple times. 

Gardner: So that third aspect of the trip that we completed while we were there is knowing that we would be coming back to do some sort of additional implementations, we also did a lot of data collection while we were there. Going into the trip, we thought that we would likely be replacing the piping of the entire system because the community had expressed that they had a lot of issues with piping getting clogged and them not being able to know where the clog was. So we actually had a couple of members of our team walk their entire piping system, which is quite long to see kind of the current state of the piping. One of the things that we also knew from the assessment trip is that they have pipes kind of hanging over ravines, which isn't super ideal, um, just because the fact that the water within the pipe will weigh down the pipe and then the pipe can break a lot easier. So we were trying to see if there was the possibility of being able to reroute some of the piping so that the community could more easily access it to be able to fix it. But one of the things that was really interesting that we found out is that there is no better pathway to be able to get the pipes from the catchments down to the community. So that was a really interesting lesson for us, just in terms of the difficulty of working in this terrain, but definitely led us to the conclusion that, okay, the pipes are the best that they can be, so we can kind of move on and start exploring some additional things. We were hoping that the structural improvements would do enough to keep contaminants out of the system, that we wouldn't have to do anything else to improve the water quality. However, some of the testing that we did while we were there, we went around to every single one of the sources, all the different tanks and catchments, the pure sources themselves, and took samples, went back to our hotel at night and spent a lot of time doing different sorts of testing and analyses. We did find both coliforms, so that's fecal coliforms and e coli within their water, which is not something that we can really fix in regards to, you know, fixing those structural integrities. So we kind of came to the conclusion that we would need to implement some sort of filtration system to improve the quality of their water, and that's what we're working on as a team right now.

Cain: So how were you received by the community? Obviously you were pretty busy during work throughout this, but I imagine there was plenty of opportunities to sort of engage. 

Gross: The first day that we got there, we drove up to the community and they were all standing around their main community building and so they brought us inside the building and sat us down at this table and everyone was super excited to see us and we had a meeting in there with them where we gave some speeches about our plans and just being so thankful for having them let us be there and then they had some speeches for us about thanking us for coming and just being so excited about being able to work with us and then once all of that sort of part of the meeting was done, they brought us a whole bunch of food that they had prepared earlier in the day. So we got to try some Ecuadorian cheese, which was really good, and corn that they had grown right in the community, which is unlike any American corn. It was super good. 

Gardner: So much better than American corn.

Gross: Yes, it's better. Um, as well as other things. So that was their initial welcome to us, which was great. And that kind of led into them giving us a tour of the community and their entire water system. And then throughout the week we obviously worked with them while we were doing the construction work or doing the testing, but we also just had a lot of like fun interactions with them in between times and that was just really cool, just being able to interact with them the more casual manner. 

Cain: I understand the end of the trip. There was also sort of a, a great farewell, uh, as well for you. 

Gardner: Overall, the community are some of the most welcoming and kindest people that I think that I've ever met. So, it was really such a pleasure to be there and be so welcomed by them for the entire week that we were there. By the end, we were all very, very sad to go, as were they. Um, they prepared for us a really big meal, so we all got to try cuy, which is guinea pig, and that's a traditional Ecuadorian delicacy. And so it was really, really special that they prepared that for us because the fact that they themselves only eat meat on special occasions. So, during festivals or if there's a funeral or a wedding or a birth or something like that, that's the only time that they'll really eat meat. So, the fact that they served us meat and joined in that meal with us was, was really, really special. It was absolutely delicious. All of it was really, really good. And after that we also shared some American snacks that we brought, so like candies and like goldfish and things like that we brought for them to try. Um, I remember one of them was trying like the sour patch kids was very, very confused at that, why it was so sour in the beginning. Um, but it was really awesome to be able to like, share our cultures in that way. Another thing that we did was we actually played a soccer match with the community, which was super, super fun. We were all pretty nervous because the community is located at 9,000 feet in elevation, which is significantly higher than here in Worcester. Even walking around and hiking felt like you were sprinting. Just because there's so much less oxygen in the air. So we were a little nervous to be running around the soccer field with them, but we had a really, really awesome time. We had so much fun. It was great to be able to connect with them again in that more casual way and to be able to like hang out with the kids in the community and things like that.

Cain: Were you guys on one team and the Ecuadorians on the other, or were you like put together? Uh, were you guys keeping score or who won? 

Gross: We did keep score and somehow we won. I don't know how we won. 

Gardner: I don't know how we won. 

Cain: Wow, against the home field advantage. 

Gardner: I was huffing and puffing like crazy.

Cain: Well, I look forward to the, to the rematch. I'm sure you guys will be looking forward to it as well, but, um. You know, with any trip like this and all the work that you did, um, there's always challenges that come up in the unexpected. I'm, I'm wondering what were some of the, um, the challenges that you had to overcome in the work that you were doing?

Gross: Yeah, so one of the biggest challenges that we experienced kind of throughout the week was miscommunication, which most of us on the trip didn't speak very much Spanish. We did have one student who was a native Spanish speaker and a professor who came with us is also a native Spanish speaker. So, we were able to have them do a lot of the translation for us as well as the members of the organization that we work with in Ecuador. So, we did have good translation with the community members who, most of them spoke Spanish as well as their native language, Kichwa, but obviously with any major project, no matter what language you're speaking in, there was always a miscommunication. 

Gardner: A lot of the community does speak Spanish very well, but again, not the whole community. Some of them only speak Spanish a little bit, and really they're most fluent in their native dialect, which is Kichwa, and none of us nor anyone in the organization that we work with who are all native Ecuadorians, none of them speak Kichwa either. So that can definitely be a challenge. Like Sophie was mentioning, oh, there was one point during the trip where our team was mainly up on the hill a bit more. We were working on that tank, like we mentioned earlier, and the contractors were kind of down in the valley working in Marco Pata. So at one point the contractors came up, the president of the community came up and they're all kind of walking towards us and we're like, oh, okay. Like maybe we're getting an update on how things are going, how the current construction is going. And the president was very, very angry, essentially. What we were able to kind of translate through, which ended up translating through multiple people, was that they were confused as to what our goals were on this trip versus our goals for the future and versus what the contractors would actually be working on. From their understanding, and I kind of totally understand how this got lost in translation, was that we were going to be fixing all of the catchments. However, our plan was, since we had never really worked with this contractor and neither had the organization that we were working with, neither of us had worked with this contractor before. So kind of doing a trial run just to see how things went, and also, it was the amount of funds that we had available at the time, we could only complete so much at once because of the fact that we have to fundraise all the money on our own. And so the community was just a little bit confused as to how much was happening on the trip versus how much would be happening at a later date. And so the president of the community had said that they were gonna stop all works. They didn't wanna work with the contractor anymore, 'cause of the fact that this kind of confusion came up and 'cause of the fact that this was happening quite literally in three different languages at the same time, um, only one of which I understand, I was very stressed out. But thankfully we were able to kind of get everything resolved by kind of re-explaining what our goals were for the trip and that we did have goals in the future to come back to finish those things. Something that was really awesome about the trip and being able to come and to start doing work is that there was a lot of trust that was gained both ways. So I think it was a really good conversation because I think we both left that challenge with more trust in each other and you know, more trust for the future in that, you know, we are 100% planning on coming back and finishing all of those things that we planned on.

Cain: Kudos to you for working through all that and you know, I'm kind of wondering your thoughts, looking back on it now that it's, it's been a few months, how much of the trip was, you know, to you about the work that you did and how much of it was about those personal connections that you built with the people in the community 

Gross: In terms of the time that was spent, obviously, so much of the trip was towards the work of what was being done and what was being made, and that was certainly of the entire reason that we went down, very important. But that honestly wouldn't have been as impactful or as successful if it hadn't been for all of the collaboration and communication with the community members throughout the trip. Probably the most important part was building that relationship with the community, especially since we have future plans to work with them. So, it was very important to leave the trip with everyone feeling good and excited about the future.

Gardner: 100%. Going into the trip, something that we really prioritized and kind of all the meetings that we were doing to prepare, um, was being able to have those relationships with members of the community because of the fact that prior to this trip we had a lot of issues with communication just because they are way up in the mountains. They don't always have signals, so it's difficult for them to receive calls and text messages and things like that. So we really wanted to be able to establish a good line of communication and we were able to do that in a whole host of different things. Like I was talking about earlier, just being able to share meals with the community I think was honestly one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Not only that first meal and the last meal, but also meals while we were working. And just like a lot of those little interactions that made everything really special. A couple little stories that I always love to tell is that the community thought that I looked too young to be 19. Um, and so when they asked me, they were like, how old are you? I know enough Spanish to be able to kind of have that sort of conversation. I was like, oh, I'm 19. And they were like, oh, no, no, no, like you're too little. And so for the rest of the trip, they called me ita and in Spanish, adding -ita to the end of anything is usually saying something's little and cute. It was an interesting kind of juxtaposition because on the trip I was the lead from our side of things and so it was interesting because they definitely had that kind of mutual respect, but also at the same time they were like, oh, you're just so little and cute. Um, so there's a couple of like really awesome interactions like that. Another one of the ones that I found was really interesting that I think just shows the drastic difference in culture and just the way that we live is that all of us were applying sunscreen constantly because we're so high up, the UV is so much stronger than here. So I was applying sunscreen at least three times a day 'cause I burn very easily. And at one point the community was watching me spray sunscreen and they were like, what are you doing? And they thought it was really funny. So it was just like little interesting moments and little like moments of shared laughter of shared culture, that that made the trip really special. 

Cain: So probably some memories that you'll always, uh, remember 

Gardner: 100%.

Cain: So I understand you also asked people in the community to make a scrapbook. Can, can you explain that and, and what they ended up making? 

Gardner: So while we were here, and something that we've kind of done on all our prior trips is be able to make a scrapbook of our team and our whole club here so that the community knows that it's not just the six of us that come down to Ecuador that are working on this project, but we have a whole team of people back in Worcester who are also putting so much time and energy and so much of their skills into the project as well. So we made the scrapbook. All of our members had our own individual pages. We had pictures of ourselves, just basic things about ourselves, things that we liked doing, things along those lines, just so they could get to know us a little bit more on a personal level. And then at the same time, we brought down all the materials for them to be able to create their own version of the scrapbook so that we would be able to learn about all the different members in the community, even community members that we didn't necessarily speak with or have a lot of interactions with while we were there. And I had also brought my instant Polaroid camera so that they could take pictures and just easily paste them into the scrapbook. Um, so we could kind of do like an exchange, like we give them our scrapbook and then they would give the one that they made us. Um, and that was another one, 100% one of my favorite parts of the trip. Number one, they love the Polaroid camera. Um, they all have phones, but they never saw something that just kinda like spits out the photos automatically. So they thought it was super cool. Um, and they just had so much fun with the whole scrapbook, just like it was a great way for us to just like, we were kind of like making jokes back and forth. And so they spent a lot of time, you know, taking photos of different members of the community, writing things down about, you know. Just kind of their lifestyle, their way of life, their everyday. Um, one of the things that they had kind of said in the scrapbook, which I thought was really beautiful, is that they had said that we made the scrapbook for you so that you could understand our stories better. And I think that was one of my biggest goals, like kind of going on the trip was to be able to understand and share the stories of the community members. So when they gave me back the scrapbook on that last day after completing it, like I just started crying like crazy. Um, it was just so wonderful to be able to interact with them in that way. So yeah, it was just a really, really amazing experience. 

Cain: I think that's so cool. So now here back in Worcester, I'm wondering how you reflect on this and you know, what would you say is the most meaningful aspect of the trip now that you can sort of see it from a distance of time and thousands of miles?

Gross: Yeah. I would say the most meaningful aspect for me personally was definitely being able to work so closely with the community members. We had heard so much about them over the course of the previous years as we were working on the project from the students who had gone on the first trip. Um, so we like knew a whole bunch of their names and like their roles in the community and so it was really just a great connection to be able to actually go there and like see their faces and be like, oh my gosh, you're that person. Being able to just meet with them on a human level. Even though I personally don't know any Spanish, I was still able to connect with so many of the women and the kids that were there just through laughter and smiles and pointing at things and small translations between other people on the team.

Gardner: I totally agree with everything that Sophie just said. Um, I think that one of the things that was also really meaningful for me was to actually be able to see all the work and all the plans that we've been, you know, doing for two years prior to traveling finally come to fruition. Um, and being able to see the impact of the work that we've done here and the work that everyone else on our team here in Worcester has done and just the impact that that was able to have on the community and how thankful they were for it. I think that one of the things that I remember very fondly is on the last day we had kind of done a bit of a social survey. So we were basically asking in the community, like, what can we do better? Like, how can we help you more? And as soon as we asked them that question, they all started clapping and cheering and they were like 10 out of 10, a hundred out of a hundred. Like they were just so thankful and so happy to like be able to share this with us. And even talking with them after the trip, they were like, we loved like having you here and being able to share our culture with you and you share your culture with us. And just that exchange was just really, really beautiful and just their excitement and their joy and yeah, I think that that's what definitely made the biggest impact on me and just how excited they are for us to come back. There was one woman that I had talked with very frequently because the fact she was the woman that I had given my Polaroid camera to, so she was really working on the scrapbook. We had also taught her to do water testing and so on the last day she was also um, who gave me the scrapbook back. And so before we left, like kind of went over to give like a special goodbye to her since we had really shared a connection. And one of the things that, you know, I was telling her like in my broken Spanish, like, thank you so much. Like, this is perfect. Everything's been perfect. Like we're so thankful, like for your welcome and all these things like that. And like I was saying goodbye. And she was like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't say goodbye. We're only saying see you later 'cause you have to come back. And then I just got all emotional again. I was like, oh my goodness. But I think just like being able to, to make those relationships with the people in the community was really special.

Cain: That's awesome. Uh, and as you mentioned, the project's not done. What's next and what's, what's the work that you're currently doing here in Worcester to keep things moving? 

Gross: So the next thing that is coming up for us is a remote implementation of the upgrades to the catchments and the tanks. And so that would involve us working with the community and a contractor engineer in Ecuador to plan out how the rest of the construction would go and then be in a lot of communication with the community members and the engineer while the construction was happening to make sure that everything was being done well. So, this remote implementation will hopefully be happening in May or June of 2026. This would wrap up the structural work of this project so that all of the structural elements of the systems in the community would be fully upgraded and keeping out any contaminants from surface level water.

Gardner: So another thing that we're working on very heavily as a chapter right now is we're working on researching and hopefully very soon prototyping some of our solutions to implement in regards to that water quality issue that I had mentioned earlier. So we are looking into chlorination and uv, light disinfection, and a bunch of different other solutions to help get rid of those coliforms. So in our weekly meetings, that's what a lot of our more technical members are working on. These solutions that I just mentioned will be implemented in the community, hopefully on our next trip. So we're hopeful to travel back to the community next year, 2026, and all these filtration solutions that I've kind of talked about, we'll be able to kill any of the contaminants that I kind of mentioned earlier to ensure that the community doesn't have to continuously boil their water. That's what they're doing right now to kill any of those contaminants, which is just a lot of added labor for them. One of the things that we want within a filtration solution is that it doesn't require a ton of maintenance. They are, in a lot of ways, an aging population, and so one of the things that they communicated to us is that it's very difficult for them to perform higher levels and high amounts of maintenance, which is one of the reasons why they needed a lot of help in restoring the system. So being able to implement something with little maintenance that can prevent them from getting sick and so they can just drink their water straight from the tap is really our next goal. 

Cain: Sophie for the WPI Journal, the university's magazine, you wrote a journal about this trip and it's got some great photos along with it as well. So I encourage people to, to check that out. What was that experience like to write and document, uh, during your time there? 

Gross: While we were in Ecuador, obviously we were working like eight to nine hours a day in the community, and then going back to the hotel to do testing and other work, and other planning for the next day. So we were all very tired. 

Gardner: Not a lot of sleeping happened on this trip, 

Gross: Not a whole lot of sleeping. And so kind of the last thing that I wanted to do throughout the trip was take time to like write in my notebook, just things that happened during the day, but I knew it would be very important to do so, like kind of as in the moment as possible, um, to get all of the feelings and experiences of the moment. So. I did oftentimes when we were driving back from the community to our hotel, which that drive was about an hour, I would sit in the van and write down stories from the day. And sometimes I would ask the other people on the trip if they had any interesting interactions with community or challenges that came up. And so when I was doing that writing, I was trying to get as much of the detailed experience part of the stories, focusing on what was kind of the scene of all of these experiences. And so I did that throughout the week. And then when I came back to the U.S., I spent some time over the summer taking those notes and putting them into a more story narrative content, and then throughout the summer and then into the fall I was able to work with Kris from the WPI Journal and kind of scoped what I had written before into something that would work well for both the print version of the article and an online version, and then picking out photos from the trip that we had all taken that kind of accompanied each anecdotal story.

Cain: Yeah, Kris O'Reilly is our WPI Journal editor, and we'll talk with her a little bit later in the episode. And, uh, you know, I can, I can just vouch for it. What you wrote really paints a picture of the scene and you can kind of picture yourself there. It's, it's definitely a great read and the photos from your team are, are fantastic. It strikes me just how much money it must take to pay for the travel and the supplies that are required. How do you raise the funds as a chapter of Engineers Without Borders? Uh, and and how can people help if they wanna support this particular project? 

Gross: Yeah, so we do all of our fundraising ourselves. So we get a lot of our funds from company sponsorships, grants that we write, smaller fundraisers on campus, like where we bake a whole bunch of cookies and sell them to students on campus. And then another large source of our funding is the Giving Day campaign that WPI puts on every year. So the past few years as we've been working to be able to go on these trips. We've definitely stepped up our efforts there and have gotten a good amount of funds from that. That definitely allowed us to be able to go on this past trip and trips in the future. So, if you wanna help support our project and all the work that we're doing, there will be a link to our websites in the speaker notes, and on that website you can go to the donate button, which will take you to the page from EWB-USA Any contributions there will go directly to our EWB fund. And all of that will go directly towards the project funding materials and labor costs that are associated with the work that's done on this project. 

Cain: As Sophie mentioned, we'll post a link to the WPI chapter of Engineers Without Borders website. How can WPI students get involved if they want to join you on this project? 

Gardner: So one of our most asked questions when we're table sitting or when we're part of an event around campus is, do I have to be a civil engineer to be part of Engineers Without Borders or do I even have to be an engineer? And the answer is no, definitely not. Um, we have students from all different majors across campus. There's so many different areas that you can get involved with. Not even just the technical side, although the technical side does include a lot of civil, environmental, and kind of chemical engineering work. There is also a possibility that we'll be doing more work with energy and solar in the future. We have a whole team of students who work on the fundraising aspect of things as well as business and pr. So, yes, we're looking for all the hands and all the help we can get. 

Gross: You can go to our website to find out more about what we do, as well as we have all of our meeting times posted on there for every term. You can come to any of our meetings and come meet us. 

Cain: How does your experience volunteering for Engineers Without Borders fit into your individual career goals? 

Gardner: So most likely after I finish my undergraduate degree, I will be either working for Engineers Without Borders full-time, or something akin to that. So something like the Peace Corps or something similar where I can use a lot of my engineering knowledge to be able to do similar projects like these around the world. I think that Engineers Without Borders has really instilled that passion in me for not only traveling and learning about other cultures and meeting people from other cultures and having that cultural exchange, but being able to use my knowledge and my expertise for good. And so I think that it's really definitely had a big impact on what I wanna do with my career. After working with an organization akin to Engineers Without Borders, after my undergraduate degree, I do plan to go back to graduate school and continue my work in chemical engineering, most likely within either the renewable energy or carbon sequestration sector. This is largely because the impacts of climate change tend to affect those in marginalized communities the most. So again, being able to use a lot of my expertise and knowledge to be able to not only help the ecosystems of the world, but to be able to help people throughout the world. 

Cain: And how about you Sophie?

Gross: I'm currently in the BS/MS program at WPI for electrical and computer engineering, and I'm focusing on power systems specifically because I want to go into renewable energy or grid modernization. A lot of the work that I've done in Engineers the Borders doesn't necessarily line up with what I'm hoping to do for the rest of my life, but I have gained so many skills from being part of this chapter, especially as the project lead. I have learned so many project management skills. And kind of how to deal with crises in the moment, or changes of plans that need to be adapted to, as well as other more technical skills of report writing and learning things that I'm not familiar with in a fast environment that I think will definitely help me in my career and have given me the skills and confidence to be able to go out and pursue what I'm passionate about as best as I can. 

Cain: How meaningful is it to have an organization like Engineers Without Borders on WPI’s campus? 

Gross: I think it's really meaningful. A major part of WPI’s kind of culture is being able to use engineering and whatever you're studying to do good in the world, um, and have that kind of cultural exchange wherever you end up being. I think it's very important that we aren't part of some other academic program that you have to get into, that anyone can be a part of our club for as much or as little amount of time that they want. Having Engineers Without Borders on campus and doing its work really just exemplifies WPIs mission.

Cain: Sarah and and Sophie, thank you so much for, uh, taking the time to speak with me and documenting, um, your trip to Ecuador, uh, and the work that you've done and the work that you're still doing, and telling us a little bit more about Engineers Without Borders. Uh, it's been great to have you on the WPI Podcast.

Gross: Thank you so much for having us. 

Gardner: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us, and thank you for so much for all those listening. Um, in our show notes, we'll also link our Instagram page, so feel free to follow us on Instagram to be able to get updates on what we're doing now. 

Cain: Sarah Gardner and Sophie Gross are WPI students and members of WPI’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. I encourage you to check out the fall winter 2025 edition of the WPI Journal, the University's magazine. You'll find Sophie's journal about the project and the team's experience in Ecuador. There's some great photos from the trip in addition to her writing. We'll post a link to that in the show notes, and that's really just one of the fascinating things you can learn about by reading the WPI Journal. I'm joined now by Kris O'Reilly. She's the editor of the WPI Journal and she's here now to talk more about the fall, winter 2025 edition. Available now online and around campus. Hi Kris. 

Kris O'Reilly: Hi Jon. Thanks for having me. 

Cain: Of course. So we've been talking a lot about the water project in Ecuador, and you've kind of got a water theme going on in this edition of the Journal from electric jet skis to an ocean swimmer working hard for a livable planet. Uh, please tell us a little bit more about those stories. 

O'Reilly: Yeah, I'd like to say that was actually planned, but it, uh, turned out that as I looked at the stories of the magazine as thinking, hey, there's a water theme here. So Jack Duffy-Protentis is Class of 20 and he's the CEO of a company called eSki, and it's a company that he's um creating electric jet skis. He's got some prototypes and hopefully by next year might have, uh, something that is actually sold in the market. He's a great story about resilience. Because, um, in addition to all his work on this company, um, he actually has a, um, a vision issue. He's legally blind and he has a service dog, Adonis. I met Adonis. He's lovely. Um, you know, it's, it's a, a great story that he is an entrepreneur, but also that he's overcoming some of his challenges in his life and yeah, so he considers it just another problem solving thing. So, the second feature that is related to water, um, is Caitlin Swalec. She's class of 2016. Um, she works for Global Energy Monitor and she uses data to encourage, um, sustainable choices, uh, by some of the industries that are the largest producers of CO2 emissions, the steel, chemicals, and concrete industries. Interestingly, she is also an ocean water swimmer and so that in addition to when she does her swimming and it's a lot of long distance ocean swimming in the beautiful Santa Barbara ocean, um, that she clears her mind, but also it reminds her of what she's doing and so why she's doing it. An interesting fact about Caitlin is that she has two siblings and, uh, both are alums. Um, they are both chemical engineering majors as is she. Her father is also an alum and a chemical engineer, and her mother is a chemical engineer but is not an alum. We can forgive her for that. 

Cain: It's great to learn about all those connections to WPI and the, and the industry. And there's always so many great alumni stories in the journal and, and, and you've got another one. It's, it's not just all about water. You've also got a cool profile of an alum’s turning point from Air Force Veteran to a very different career. 

O'Reilly: Yeah, so we have a Turning point feature, which, um, we, we feature an alum who, you know, got a typical WPI technical degree and, but now is doing something entirely different. So we call it a turning point. So, um, Shana Figueroa, who is a double alum, she's (class of) ‘01, and she got her master's in ‘06, aerospace engineering major. Retired in 2021 as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and decided to pursue a dream, a passion that she's always had, which is finding out about the film industry. And she went to Emerson College, got, um, got a degree for, um, doing film work and is now, making indie short films. 

Cain: That's great. Look forward to learning more more about her. And, and finally, from the category of, I bet you didn't know WPI had this, uh, the journal also has the story of connections between the university and polar exploration. What's that all about? 

O'Reilly: So, uh, in the archivist column, Gillian McCuistion, writes about a new exhibit in the. Gladwin Gallery called Currents of Change, and in this exhibit there is a transmitter that was brought by Admiral Richard Byrd in his many Antarctic missions, and it was modified by Professor Hobart Newell in the 1920s that allowed constant radio communications to be maintained with the outside world while Admiral Byrd was on his expeditions. 

Cain: It's so cool that WPI has that. Um, I encourage folks to, to check out the article and go to the Gordon Library to check out the exhibit. I was there a few weeks ago and, and saw it, and it's just amazing to think of the history that that's there. And, and it's just really one of the interesting things with WPI ties, uh, that they have in the archives here at the, at the library. So, you can read all about these stories, see the great photos of the alums that we talked about and see the photo of the transmitter used in Antarctica in the fall/winter 2025 edition of the WPI Journal. Uh, that's on wpi.edu. We'll have a link to the edition in the show notes. Kris, thanks for being on the WPI podcast. 

O'Reilly: Thanks for inviting me. 

Cain: Kris O'Reilly is editor of the WPI I journal, the University's magazine. My thanks again to our other guests, Sarah Gardner and Sophie Gross. You can learn more about student clubs and organizations by visiting our website, wpi.edu. This has been the WPI podcast. You can hear more episodes of this podcast and more podcasts from across campus at wpi.edu/listen. There you can also find audio versions of stories about our students, faculty and staff. Please follow this podcast and WPI News on your favorite audio platform. You can also ask Alexa to “open WPI.” This podcast was produced at the WPI Global Lab. In the Innovation Studio. I had audio engineering help from computer science and music, undergraduate student Aster Dettweiler, and PhD candidate Varun Bhat. Tune in next time for another episode of the WPI Podcast. I'm Jon Cain. Thanks for listening.