Stanford undergrads engineer a better world

Electrical engineering Professor My Le is a petite, dynamic woman who wears her hair in a tight chignon and strides purposely around the lectern in class, almost using it as a prop. Her lectures at her highly popular undergraduate course, Engineering for Good (Course EE46), are laced liberally with anecdotes that underscore an essential theme – engineering on a grassroots scale can change the world.

The prime directive of Le's class is simple and straightforward: develop devices and protocols that improve the quality of life for residents in countries with little in the way of infrastructure and services. This can be easier said than done, Le acknowledged during a recent lecture; that's why perseverance is as essential as a good idea. 

"You define your goal. Then you develop a plan to reach your goal,” she says. "Don’t worry if it is 'right' or not – you test it, then refine your concept. Then you test again and again.  And you get a little closer each time to where you need to be."

Le works with nongovernmental organizations to identify needs and possible solutions, organizes students into teams, then assigns projects. In the summer, several of the teams go abroad to develop their projects in the field. 

There they learn firsthand of the profound challenges that accompany any engineering endeavor in the developing world. Sometimes progress is nil, and sometimes it is incremental. But at times it is dramatic. 

A recent project in Cambodia falls under the latter category. Two of Le's students, Brian Chhor (BS, Human Biology, 2013) and Katie Nelson (BS, Global Health, 2013), developed a toilet for rural farmers that used locally-sourced hydrated lime to both mitigate sanitation problems and provide a sustainable source of pathogen-free organic fertilizer. 

The project's sponsoring NGO was "blown away" by the device, Chhor says, and farmers in the test region are anxious to develop and apply the technology.

The countries addressed by Engineering for Good span the planet, and the projects are accordingly diverse: in the 2013 spring quarter class, they ranged from protecting the pristine ecosystems of Alaska's Kuskokwim watershed while simultaneously encouraging sustainable fisheries to developing insulated containers to transport temperature-sensitive hepatitis B vaccine to villages that are far from roads and off the grid. 

Not all of Le's students go abroad, but all must develop projects that reflect the class rubric. Engineering undergrads are well-represented in EE46, but so are students studying other disciplines. The diversity is intentional:  Le believes that great things can be achieved by melding engineering majors with peers pursing more right-brain fields of inquiry.

"Engineers can really benefit from people who can make intuitive or creative leaps," she says. "That’s how you get the best results."

Of the 27 students in Le's most recent class, 11 completed their quarter on campus, and 16 went abroad for their projects. Why only 16? 

"Funding, mainly," Le says. "It's a constant scramble. I wake up every night worrying about how we're going to keep things going. Also, some of the students have projects in countries on the (U.S. State Department's) watch list, and Stanford undergrads can't travel there due to security concerns."

Computer science major Ifueko Igbinedion is one of the students who completed her quarter wholly at Stanford. Her project was in Nigeria, which is on a State Department watch list. That reality enforced a certain poignancy on her work, given that her parents are Nigerian emigrants, she has many relatives in Nigeria and she has visited the country with family members.

 Notwithstanding the travel proscription, her determination to help solve the West African nation’s manifold problems was (and remains) steadfast. She is especially concerned about the dire state of health care in Nigeria, particularly for women and children. 

"I've seen firsthand that most women have absolutely no access to prenatal and postnatal care," Igbinedion says. "I had a cousin who died following childbirth, and I saw how that affected my father. I really want to do whatever I can to change things."

Igbinedion and classmate Ysis Tarter, also a computer science major, consequently formed Team ENcode; their project, begun a year earlier by another team, focused on developing physical code and phone apps for field health care workers and hospital staffers who need to quickly share information on patient symptoms and treatment options.

"(The earlier team) hadn't gotten deep into the code, so that's where (we concentrated),"  Igbinedion says, noting that the team was closing in on a completed app.

But Engineering for Good isn't just about ameliorating the developing world’s woes. As students attempt to change global society, they are changed in turn by the experience; that implies the bittersweet acknowledgement of the limits of individual endeavor.

"The differences between expectations and reality are compounded in a program like this," says Elizabeth Marshman, the teaching assistant for the class and a graduate student in mechanical engineering. "Everyone you’re involved with has a different point of view, and you have to learn how to incorporate sometimes conflicting perspectives in your project."

You also have to learn how to let go, Marshman observes.

"The goal isn’t just to build devices to fix problems," she says. "It's really about making it possible for local people to take over the projects. You want to make yourself unnecessary. At the end of a successful project, you should hear something like, 'Thanks for the help, but we can take it from here.'"

For Le, the class seems to have subsumed her career – indeed, to a very real extent, her life. While she ranges widely in her scope as educator, researcher and consultant, she is first and foremost an evangelist for giving gifted students a real shot at making the world a better place.

"I get quite a few emails from former students telling me how much the class meant to them, how they'll remember it forever," she says. "And believe me, when I read something like that, it helps me get out of bed in the morning."