Amy Pickering is an environmental health engineer and works as a research associate at Stanford University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Woods Institute for the Environment. She combines social science, microbiology and engineering to study ways people in low-income countries can access safer water and better sanitation. People living in the developing world are often exposed to higher levels of bacteria and other germs, usually because of contaminated water and poor sanitation conditions. Pickering tries to reduce the spread of disease by travelling to areas with poor water quality and studying why people are getting sick and coming up with low-cost and low-tech solutions that can help minimize illnesses. She also runs research studies to test and evaluate how effective various interventions are at preventing the spread of disease. Pickering spends about 20% of her time in the countries in which she works and the rest at Stanford.
Pickering did not always know she wanted to do this type of work. In high school, one of her math teachers suggested that she go into a career involving numbers.
"I knew that I loved the outdoors and the environment so I decided to do engineering, and specifically environmental engineering. And I also wanted to do something that challenged me and I thought that engineering would provide that challenge," explains Pickering.
After she graduated from college with an undergraduate degree in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University, she went on to get a masters in environmental engineering with an emphasis on water quality from University of California, Berkeley. There, she worked on a low cost UV water disinfection device, which was being implemented in Mexico to help clean contaminated water. After she graduated with a masters degree, Pickering wanted to work at the intersection of science and policy so she began working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington DC.
"I liked working at the EPA a lot, but I was in a cubicle and I quickly became restless just sitting in a cubicle all day," says Pickering.
As Pickering was growing restless with cubicle work, a tsunami struck and destroyed large parts of South Asia. She and some colleagues from graduate school decided to go to Sri Lanka to help with the tsunami relief effort. To provide residents with clean drinking water, they installed the UV water disinfection devices that they had worked on at UC-Berkeley. She loved this type of work and that's when she knew she wanted to work on global water quality. She then received a Fulbright scholarship to teach English, math and photography and completed a photo essay about how people in different parts of the world interact with water. She eventually ended up completing a Ph.D in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.
This video will be featured in our Engineering Is: Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind one of Amy Pickering's projects– a device that purifies drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. Stay tuned for its release. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.
from QUEST http://ift.tt/1Jy33Ga
Amy Pickering is an environmental health engineer and works as a research associate at Stanford University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Woods Institute for the Environment. She combines social science, microbiology and engineering to study ways people in low-income countries can access safer water and better sanitation. People living in the developing world are often exposed to higher levels of bacteria and other germs, usually because of contaminated water and poor sanitation conditions. Pickering tries to reduce the spread of disease by travelling to areas with poor water quality and studying why people are getting sick and coming up with low-cost and low-tech solutions that can help minimize illnesses. She also runs research studies to test and evaluate how effective various interventions are at preventing the spread of disease. Pickering spends about 20% of her time in the countries in which she works and the rest at Stanford.
Pickering did not always know she wanted to do this type of work. In high school, one of her math teachers suggested that she go into a career involving numbers.
"I knew that I loved the outdoors and the environment so I decided to do engineering, and specifically environmental engineering. And I also wanted to do something that challenged me and I thought that engineering would provide that challenge," explains Pickering.
After she graduated from college with an undergraduate degree in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University, she went on to get a masters in environmental engineering with an emphasis on water quality from University of California, Berkeley. There, she worked on a low cost UV water disinfection device, which was being implemented in Mexico to help clean contaminated water. After she graduated with a masters degree, Pickering wanted to work at the intersection of science and policy so she began working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington DC.
"I liked working at the EPA a lot, but I was in a cubicle and I quickly became restless just sitting in a cubicle all day," says Pickering.
As Pickering was growing restless with cubicle work, a tsunami struck and destroyed large parts of South Asia. She and some colleagues from graduate school decided to go to Sri Lanka to help with the tsunami relief effort. To provide residents with clean drinking water, they installed the UV water disinfection devices that they had worked on at UC-Berkeley. She loved this type of work and that's when she knew she wanted to work on global water quality. She then received a Fulbright scholarship to teach English, math and photography and completed a photo essay about how people in different parts of the world interact with water. She eventually ended up completing a Ph.D in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.
This video will be featured in our Engineering Is: Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind one of Amy Pickering's projects– a device that purifies drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. Stay tuned for its release. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.
from QUEST http://ift.tt/1Jy33Ga
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