This NSF IRES US-Brazil Integrating Engineering and Anthropology Research to Expand Perspectives on Water and Sustainability project was a collaboration between San Diego State University (SDSU), California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), which provided eight-week research experiences in Brazil with foreign mentorship to fifteen US graduate and undergraduate students. Two additional students completed research in Brazil with IRES participants, but with funding from the SDSU Behner-Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies. Two other students could not travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but completed local projects while interacting remotely with Brazilian colleagues. Therefore, the project directly impacted 19 US students—58% of them were first generation college students; 53% qualified for need-based financial aid; 74% were women; 68% were Black, African-American, Hispanic, and/or Latinx; 68% studied Civil or Environmental Engineering; 32% studied Sociology, Anthropology, Public Health, Urban Planning, or Geography.

Many cities in the Americas have experienced rapid urbanization. Land inequality and the lack of affordable public housing programs in Brazil caused the formation of densely-populated, low-income urban communities, including ocupações and favelas, which have been catalysts for grassroots water and sanitation infrastructure innovations, (e.g., simplified sewers). UFMG’s faculty are global leaders in energy-efficient and natural wastewater treatment systems (e.g., upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors, high-rate algal ponds (HRAPs)). They have advanced technologies from the laboratory and pilot-scale to full-scale implementation. This environment provided for robust traineeship opportunities for the US student participants, who were mentored by graduate students, postdocs, and faculty from UFMG.

Research placements for US student participants were field-based or lab-based, and many involved close interactions with community members and local professionals (e.g., sanitation district engineers). Most also included cross-disciplinary experiences (e.g., engineering students visited favelas, social science students visited labs or assisted with water sampling in the field). Some participants evaluated water quality in rivers and assessed the potential for river sampling to monitor COVID-19 trends in communities without centralized sewer connections. Other participants measured microplastics and antibiotic resistance in wastewater and surface waters, and compared these findings with community perceptions of water quality. At UFMG’s state-of-the-art wastewater testbed facility, participants studied the performance of energy-efficient treatment technologies. Inspired in part by this facility, researchers from SDSU successfully secured funding to build a living learning laboratory and wastewater testbed facility in San Diego. Through qualitative, ethnographic research, participants discovered that while decisions made about sanitation in communities were primarily driven by an urgency to meet basic needs, they sometimes conveyed political strategies. For example, some members of social movements, including architects and engineers, viewed sanitation infrastructure as an essential tool to forge a path towards urban formalization and citizenship. 

Results were shared with community partners and the scientific community. Seven US student participants presented at conferences, including the Southern California Conferences on Undergraduate Research, the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors conference, an American Water Works Association conference, and a national conference on antimicrobial resistance. One student presented her work about the alignment between community perceptions and water quality in a fishing region of Brazil. Another student presented research about the impact of sludge emptying frequency on solids concentrations in a UASB reactor. Three participants integrated Brazilian perspectives into their thesis or dissertation, and five published their work in peer-reviewed journals—two US student participants published an article with Brazilian PhD students on the reduction and partitioning of viruses and bacteria with solids in a UASB reactor and HRAP. SDSU faculty and UFMG colleagues developed interdisciplinary research collaborations, resulting in a new grant from the Brazilian government agency (CNPq), and a Fulbright US Scholar, who will be hosted at UFMG. All participants engaged in outreach with students from middle schools and high schools in East Los Angeles, from tribal communities in southern California, and from community colleges in San Diego, with the objective to inspire the students to pursue careers in sustainability-related STEM fields. Events included hands-on activities (building water filters) and discussions about the benefits of undergraduate research. 

Pre- and post-trip surveys and interviews with participants revealed increases in research self-efficacy and intentions to pursue careers in sustainable development. Many participants already had high perceived senses of belonging in their fields and strong intercultural competencies before the international experience, and there was no significant increase in those measures after their trips. These findings were published in a conference paper through the American Society for Engineering Education. After their research experience, some US student participants went on to pursue graduate degrees while others have applied their intercultural competencies at engineering firms, philanthropic organizations, and government agencies. For example, one participant went to work at a health surveillance firm on projects to improve antimicrobial resistance surveillance in southeast Asia and Africa. Another interned in Washington, D.C. at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Last Modified: 03/04/2024
Modified by: Matthew E Verbyla