An all-female team of students from MSOE’s Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management Department competed in—and won—a sanitary sewer and wastewater treatment design competition sponsored by the Central States Water Environment Association Inc. (CSWEA). 

Members of MSOE’s team include: Alexis Countryman, Miranda Durbin, Guissel Davila, Sydney Shaffer, Jamie Sykora, Rachel Montavon and Christine Boland-Prom.  

The competition challenged students to develop a water renewal facility for Monteverde, Costa Rica as part of CSWEA’s Global Water Stewardship—a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing sanitation in the developing world. The designs and presentations were judged by a delegation of elected officials, government staff and university professors from Costa Rica. The delegation was in the United States, visiting Wisconsin and the Chicagoland area as part of an educational/knowledge-sharing experience focused on water and wastewater treatment methods and technologies.  

As the competition winners, MSOE’s team now has the opportunity to continue to be involved with the project and join Global Water Stewardship professionals on a trip to the project site in Costa Rica in August 2019. They’ve also been invited to represent CSWEA at the national Water Environment Federation (WEF) Student Design Competition held during the WEF’s annual technical exhibition and conference (WEFTEC) in Chicago in September 2019.  

Global Water Stewardship is committed to advancing sustainable centralized sanitation solutions that keep waterways clean and communities healthy in developing countries. During their trip to the U.S., the Costa Rican delegation visited MSOE and the Global Water Center, and toured several treatment facilities including the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, Brooklyn Wastewater Treatment Plant, Paddock Lake Treatment Plant, and Northern Moraine Water Reclamation District.