Pauline Poysophon
Age: 23
Majors: Bioengineer Pre-Med/ Human Biology







I am deeply interested in developing enviornmentally sustainable technology which applies to the following categories:
1. water collection and purification on a small scale (i.e. by individuals within a household, or a village). This idea has obvious benefits because it bypasses the necessity of creating large scale dams/desalination plants/or other water processing facilities which may pollute, destroy land and biodiversity, and excrete byproducts to which long term effects on the environment may be adverse but largely unknown. Furthermore, a small water collection system and purification, will be able to access remote areas where pipes are unable to pass.
-The Lifestraw Makes Dirty Water Clean: http://www.gizmag.com/go/4418/
-globalwater.org
-Rain Water Collection: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1219
-Note: water collection is also important in developed countries too!!
-collecting water using solar energy! http://wiki.edc-cu.org/blogs/index.php/videos/2007/12/14/p747

2. Technologies which control/mediate the spread of disease carrying vectors and parasites (i.e. rats, mosquitos, insects, and other water borne parasites). Though in part, this idea deals directly with the sanitation sector, it also includes applying concepts taken from nature, as for example by utilizing a vector's natural predator to control its population and therefore the spread of disease. This is particularly important with the advent of global climate change which can cause (in addition to food sarcity, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity and extinction of animals) the spread of disease carrying vectors. This is especially important because developing countries are especially prone to epidemic outbreaks due to an increasingly mobile human population in face industrialization that is not followed by any increase in sanitation and healthcare. In this category, education programs are necessarily important in disease control; particularly in disease prevention, understanding medication (to prevent viral mutations and resistance), and undoing stigmas associated with certain diseases (ex. AIDS/HIV).