Technically speaking, S&T was perfect

July 19, 2016 by
Killian Knowles graduated from S&T with a bachelors in technical communication in May 2015. Sam O'Keefe/Missouri S&T

Killian Knowles graduated from S&T with a bachelors in technical communication in May 2015. Sam O’Keefe/Missouri S&T

Missouri S&T offered Killian Knowles two things that few universities in the U.S. could: a top-notch education in technical communication and the kind of personal attention that comes through small class sizes and knowledgeable, friendly instructors. That he could get his bachelor’s degree from a school renowned for preparing students for the real world and rewarding, well-paying jobs was a bonus.

S&T consistently ranks among the top universities in the country in terms of return on investment and graduate starting salaries. In a December 2015 report, S&T came in at No. 2 among public colleges on Kiplinger’s list of Best College Values in regards to “salary yardstick” at $65,500. The measure is “based on the median earnings of workers who started at a particular college 10 years earlier and who received federal financial aid.” [Read more…]

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A cab ride can change your life

November 24, 2015 by
Tamerate Tadesse tests a circuit during his senior design lab. A native of Ethiopia, Tadesse has been interested in fixing electronics since he was a child. Sam O'Keefe/Missouri S&T

Tamerate Tadesse tests a circuit during his senior design lab. A native of Ethiopia, Tadesse has been interested in fixing electronics since he was a child. Sam O’Keefe/Missouri S&T

One of the biggest moments of Tamerate Tadesse’s life came in a cab.

A ride from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to Wildwood, Missouri. An inquisitive passenger. An even more inquisitive driver.

Tadesse, a native of Ethiopia, took a job as an airport taxi cab driver after settling in the St. Louis area. His English was not very good, so he practiced by talking to his passengers.

“I like to talk to people, I like to ask questions,” he says. “I’d ask them, ‘How was your flight?’”

So began Tadesse’s conversation with Peter Desloge, chairman and CEO of Watlow Electric Manufacturing Co., whom Tadesse was driving to his Wildwood, Missouri, home. [Read more…]

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Stars shine on observatory once more

October 27, 2015 by
Ken Goss, a senior in computer science and computer engineering, poses with the S&T Observatory's 16-inch diameter telescope. Sam O'Keefe/Missouri S&T

Ken Goss, a senior in computer science and computer engineering, poses with the S&T Observatory’s 16-inch diameter telescope.

An educational asset has reopened to the public, thanks, in part, to the passion and dedication of one Missouri S&T student.

Ken Goss hosted the S&T Observatory’s first Visitors’ Night in over two years on Aug. 20, 2015, giving over 100 community members, faculty, staff and students the chance to get an up-close look at Saturn and its rings through the university’s 16-inch diameter telescope.

Goss says the event went smoothly. “I have enjoyed providing this service for the public, and it seems the public has responded well, so far.” [Read more…]

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Brew sisters

September 22, 2015 by
Delaney Sexton and Courtney Mandeville worked together at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis. Sexton worked in packaging, and Mandeville still works in brewing. Sam O'Keefe/Missouri S&T

Delaney Sexton (left) and Courtney Mandeville worked together at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis through S&T’s Cooperative Education Program. Sexton worked in packaging, and Mandeville still works in brewing. Sam O’Keefe/Missouri S&T

It has been said that beer brings people together. At least that was the case for Missouri S&T students and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority sisters Delaney Sexton and Courtney Mandeville, who worked together in co-op positions at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

Sexton and Mandeville worked with S&T’s Cooperative Education Program, which gives students employment opportunities to gain practical degree-related work experience before they graduate. The program is set up so that students can take a break from studies and work full time for one semester or a combination of semesters, which allows eight to nine months of work experience versus the three summer months allowed for internship positions.

Sexton, a senior in engineering management and mechanical engineering from Independence, Missouri, worked in operations, where she managed four bottling lines at the company’s historic Bevo Bottling Plant. She says she had 30 operators reporting to her at any given time during her co-op, which concluded in July.

Mandeville, a senior in chemical engineering from Belleville, Illinois, works as a brewing quality and operations group manager. As she says, she makes the beer taste good. Her co-op runs through December. [Read more…]

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The iceman cometh

August 19, 2015 by
Ryan Priesmeyer, an incoming freshman at Missouri S&T, owns and operates the Tropical Sno on 10th Street in Rolla. Sam O'Keefe/Missouri S&T

Ryan Priesmeyer, an incoming freshman at Missouri S&T, owns and operates the Tropical Sno on 10th Street in Rolla.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, a mother of three pulls in to a parking space parallel to the Tropical Sno stand at the corner of 10th Street and Forum Drive in Rolla. Ryan Priesmeyer is leaning out of the front window to greet her and her children with a smile. A tow-headed boy with red cheeks is crying uncontrollably. A brown-eyed girl with pointy pigtails is tugging at her mother’s shirt and a tall, thin teenaged boy is mostly removed from the situation.

“How can I help you?” Priesmeyer asks, then takes the woman’s order.

Soon, cups piled high with brightly tinted ice shavings are passed through the window. The crying dies down; the tugging stops; and the teenaged boy smiles.

This is a scene that Priesmeyer has repeated time and time again this past summer as manager and owner of Tropical Sno.

The Rolla High School graduate recently bought the stand outright from previous owner Dr. Judd Boehme, a Rolla dentist who moved out of state. Priesmeyer expects it to help pay his tuition at Missouri S&T, where he plans to major in mechanical engineering this fall.

“It’s going to put me through college, which I’m really happy about,” he says.

When Boehme announced that he and his family were moving to Nevada to be closer to family, he gave first dibs on the sale to Priesmeyer, who took over the stand in April — two months shy of high school graduation.

Priesmeyer is confident he can balance college classes and schoolwork with running the stand, which usually stays open through September. “I like to stay busy,” he adds.

2015_priesmeyer_ryan_discover_secondaryPriesmeyer met Boehme through a friend who worked at Tropical Sno. Boehme asked Priesmeyer to manage the shack while he was out of town and was impressed with his work. Their friendship and trust grew from there.

“It was an amazing friendship that we built,” Priesmeyer says.

Boehme showed Priesmeyer how to manage the money for the business, place orders and make snow cones.

“I’d be over at their house late making snow cones,” Priesmeyer says. “I learned how to make the flavors and how to order from Tropical Sno. All the little things you think of behind the scenes.”

Priesmeyer says the transition from managing the stand to owning it was seamless.

“I already knew what I was doing whenever I fully took over,” he says, adding that he feels good about owning a business at such a young age.

“I know that sounds really arrogant, but I’m a business owner.”

He’s also happy to be keeping a Rolla landmark in town.

“I’m glad the shack is staying in Rolla because it’s a Rolla thing,” he says. “This stand has been here most of my life. It’s like a tradition for me.

“As a kid, I never thought I would own it. I went there all the time,” he says. “The fact that I own it now is awesome.”

Story by Greg Katski
Photos by Sam O’Keefe

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One last dip in the deep end

June 9, 2015 by
Justin Levy, who recently graduated with his bachelor’s degree in geology, waves to the camera while snorkeling off the coast of San Salvador Island in the Bahamas while on a nine-day field study trip.

Justin Levy, who recently graduated with his bachelor’s degree in geology, waves to the camera while snorkeling off the coast of San Salvador Island in the Bahamas while on a nine-day field study trip.

Justin Levy completed his collegiate career at Missouri S&T doing what he enjoys most – traveling.

Levy was one of eight geology and geophysics students to join Dr. David Wronkiewicz, associate professor of geology and geophysics, on a nine-day field study trip to San Salvador Island in the Bahamas in May. The group left just days after Levy crossed the stage at commencement with his bachelor’s degree in geology.

Although the students did group research on the geological formations and processes occurring on the island and their interdependency on biologic processes, each student also had the opportunity to do individual research.

The group spends some time studying the Cockburn Town fossilized reef.

The group spends some time studying the Cockburn Town fossilized reef.

With a passion for paleontology, Levy focused his research on the types of fossils found on the island. He studied a section of the island called the Cockburn Town fossil reef, which is made up of fossilized coral and shell fragments. He also tried to find fossilized decapods such as crabs, shrimps and lobsters.

“I wanted to compare the evolution of them (the decapods), and see if any evolution had taken place in the last million years,” says Levy. “If it had, it could signify a drastic increase or decrease in the food supply. Say, if one species had gotten much bigger, it could mean there was an increased food supply to allow them to grow to that size.”

Unfortunately, Levy didn’t find any decapod fossils, but he still learned a great deal about the nature of field studies.

“I found out that field research never goes the way you want it to go,” he says. “I thought I had an idea of what I was going to do. I thought it would be fairly easy; that everything would go my way. But I learned that you plan, plan, plan, and when you get to the field, you modify, modify, modify.”

Dr. David Wronkiewicz, associate professor of geosciences and geological and petroleum engineering, holds some organic material pulled from the hypersaline water of Storr’s Lake while researching the shallow lake on San Salvador Island.

Dr. David Wronkiewicz, associate professor of geology and geophysics, holds some organic material pulled from the hypersaline water of Storr’s Lake while researching the shallow lake on San Salvador Island.

In addition to studying the fossilized reefs of Cockburn Town, the students studied modern reefs, hypersaline lakes and cave systems. Much of their research was conducted in the water, either snorkeling on offshore coral reefs or wading in the shallow water of inland Storr’s Lake. They even did several snorkeling dives at night, encountering sea turtles and a shark.

“James Hutton, the father of modern geology, said that the present is the key to the past,” says Wronkiewicz. “The diversity of geology on the island allowed the students to see Hutton’s concept of past and present geologic processes adjacent to one another in only a few hours of time.”

Levy and other students on the trip wrote about their experiences on S&T’s Miners Abroad Blog. Levy wrote about the striking lack of fresh water on the island. A Club Med resort was built on the island in 1994, he wrote, which increased the island’s freshwater pump rate by some 400 percent. By the early 2000s, the island’s fresh water had dried up. Nowadays, locals use rain collection systems to collect freshwater, then purify it.

The group poses for a picture on San Salvador Island.

The group poses for a picture on San Salvador Island.

The group explored a “blue hole” that used to pump fresh water from beneath the island, but now it pumps salt water. Blue holes are inland caves or underwater sinkholes sometimes called vertical caves. These types of studies using blue holes as well as sea-level proxies can tell researchers about the past environment and help to predict the future, according to Levy.

Levy says he’s thankful for his time at S&T, and the many opportunities he had to travel as a geology student, which included three weeks of field camp in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico; three weeks of advanced field camp in Utah and Arizona; a summer trip to Bolivia with Engineers Without Borders; and a semester as an exchange student in Hong Kong.

“This school has allowed me to find my passion, and that is travel,” he says.

Story by Greg Katski

Photos by Justin Levy

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Faith and fitness

May 6, 2015 by
Kamaria Blaney exercises at the S&T Fitness Center on a recent morning.

Kamaria Blaney exercises at the S&T Fitness Center on a recent morning. Photo by Sam O’Keefe

By her own account, 2012 was the toughest year of Kamaria Blaney’s life.

She had a baby, lost her father and broke up with her boyfriend. Along the way, she ballooned to 238 pounds.

“I was eating my life away,” Blaney, now a senior in engineering management, says. “I just really relied on food instead of my feelings.”

That is, until she took a long, hard look in the mirror – literally.

“I remember the exact moment: It was Christmas time three years ago,” she says. “I was sitting in one of my favorite stores – Charlotte Russe. My boyfriend had gotten me a jacket and he said, ‘I hope it fits you.’ Because it was the biggest size they had.

“I remember sitting in the chair and looking in the mirror and being so disgusted,” she says. I was just so unhappy.”

Blaney signed up for CoolRunning’s Couch-to-5K Running Plan, in which beginners can ease into a running regimen by running 30 minutes a day, three days a week, for nine weeks. She stopped eating fast food and junk food, she says, and started praying.

Blaney says her faith helped motivate her to improve her health.

“I had a good foundation of faith but never tried to further my relationship with God, I guess,” she says. “I just really started focusing on me and God.”

Tragedy struck Blaney’s life again in March 2013, when a friend and classmate took her own life. Despite her grief, Blaney didn’t turn to food.

“I learned the value of friendship and life,” she says. “I learned that there’s no point in being unhappy.”

That loss inspired Blaney to start a motivational Instagram group called “Fit Friends Last Longer.” Here she and her friends share photos and stories of weight loss, exercise and diet.

She says Internet supporters have been her biggest motivators.

“People Snapchat me; they Instagram me; send me all types of nice messages,” she says. “They watch everything that I’m posting.

“People notice I’m putting in this hard work. They love it, and they respond. That’s what drives me.”

Since March 2013, Blaney has lost over 80 pounds.

Now, she trains fellow students, motivating them through fitness. They meet every day at 6:30 a.m. at the S&T Fitness Center. “Everybody has greatness, especially if they’re here at S&T already.”

One day Blaney hopes to get personal training certification and open a fitness center, but for now she’s focused on completing her engineering management degree. “I love the idea of collaboration, figuring out how things work,” she says. “I feel like I can apply that to anything.

“God has given me a brain, and he’s given me a lot of intelligence. He’s given me vision.”

Blaney, who was nominated for an Inspirational Woman Award in 2014 by the Women’s History Month Planning Committee, hasn’t forgotten where she was three short years ago.

“I still look in the mirror every day because I don’t want to lose sight of who I was,” she says. “I’ve been through it. So I know that you can get through it, too. You just have to have goals and trust the process.”

By Greg Katski

 

 

 

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Weathering the storm(water)

April 21, 2015 by
Katie Bartels, a sophomore in environmental engineering, conducts her experiment on the green roof on top of Emerson Electric Co. Hall.

Katie Bartels, a sophomore in environmental engineering, conducts her experiment on the green roof on top of Emerson Electric Co. Hall. Photo by Sam O’Keefe

For Katherine Bartels, environmentalism is all about balance. “It is finding the best solution for humans and the environment without sacrificing one for the other,” she says.

Bartels follows this mantra in her current research project. She studies the volume and quality of stormwater saved from runoff by the green roof on top of Missouri S&T’s Emerson Electric Co. Hall.

The green roof features 16,000 plants arranged in the shape of a shamrock. Most of the plants growing on the roof are a variety of sedum and all were chosen for their ability to thrive in direct sun and wind with limited water. The roof is divided into three sections, each covered with different roofing materials, which allow S&T researchers to compare the water runoff control, water quality and thermal properties of each material.

Bartels, a sophomore in environmental engineering from Independence, Missouri, started the experiment last summer as part of the Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experiences (OURE) program, and plans to continue her research until she graduates. Joel Burken, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering and director of the Environmental Research Center for Emerging Contaminants, directs the research.

Bartels says that although the green roof absorbs a significant amount of stormwater, the stormwater that is washed out has much higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphate than a typical black roof. When excessive nitrogen and phosphorous levels end up in local waterways, undesirable side effects such as algae blooms can occur. When algae die, they decompose. The decomposition consumes oxygen, and with less oxygen, naturally occurring aquatic plants, fish, crustaceans and other organisms can die. Algae blooms also produce algal toxins that directly pollute the source of drinking water intake.

So now, Bartels is researching how much ground soil is necessary on a green roof to fully absorb the stormwater and minimize the amount of nutrients in the runoff. She is also studying the cooling effect that green roofs have on urban “heat islands.” An urban heat island is a city or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. That project was initiated by Madison Gibler, a graduate student who plans to complete her master’s degree in May.

“What our research does is maximize the water source potential to cool the urban heat islands, but minimize the amount of nutrients in the runoff,” Bartels says.

Once a month, Bartels tests the rainwater on the green roof. She uses small plots of soil to trap the stormwater, and then filters it through plastic tubes to paint buckets where the runoff can be extracted and tested for nitrogen and phosphate. Some of the plots feature sedum plants. Others are just covered with rocks and soil. By testing varying plots, Bartels can get an idea of the impact different plants and soils have on the stormwater.

She presented her research to the state’s top legislators in Jefferson City on March 10 as part of the annual Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol.

Bartels was also just accepted into the Aaron and Zelda Greenberg Scholars Program in the civil, architectural and environmental engineering department, in which students work with faculty advisors to develop a program of independent research study that will weave through both bachelor’s and master’s degree programs.

Bartels says she has always known that she wanted to channel her love of science into an environmentally focused career.

“I remember in elementary school reading about the polar ice caps melting. Then I saw a picture of a polar bear swimming in the ocean and my heart broke,” she says. “That’s when I knew I wanted to do anything I could to help the cause. When you’re passionate about something, you develop skills you might not have had.”

Bartels’ passion for developing clean water took root in high school, where she first learned about diverting stormwater runoff using rain gardens and green roofs in her environmental science class.

Bartels says her teacher used a low-lying recreation field with poor drainage as an example.

“I said, ‘Why don’t we build one?’” says Bartels.

Her teacher agreed, and the class built the school’s first-ever rain garden.

“It’s still there,” Bartels says. “And it’s a good feeling to say that.”

Bartels is treasurer of Missouri S&T’s Water Environment Federation (WEF) student chapter.

The student organization is heavily involved in environmental cleanups, and does float trip and sinkhole trash pickups at least once a year. The organization also monitors the water quality of Beaver Creek in southern Phelps County for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, taking water quality samples twice a year, and makes presentations at local primary schools.

Bartels hopes to work for the Environmental Protection Agency some day, maybe testing and improving water quality.

By Greg Katski

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Alpha Phi Alpha at S&T turns 50

January 28, 2015 by
Happy Phriday

Members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha high five fellow S&T students as they enter the Havener Center on Friday, Jan. 23. Every Friday at lunchtime during the school year the fraternity brothers host such “Happy Phriday” events. Photo by Sam O’Keefe

Chartered in 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement, Missouri S&T’s oldest African-American fraternity encountered obstacles on the way to its 50th anniversary, especially in the early years.

“There were some difficulties in getting the fraternity off the ground,” says Henry Brown, a 1968 civil engineering graduate of Missouri S&T and one of 18 founding members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

There was pushback from the university when Howard Manning, a 1967 civil engineering graduate, and Louis Smith, a 1966 electrical engineering graduate, transfer students and Alpha Phi Alpha brothers from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, approached administrators with the idea of establishing a chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha in Rolla.

Administrators questioned the need for a new, historically black fraternity when there were already a handful of nationally recognized fraternities at the university, Brown says. “But it wasn’t a realistic possibility for us to walk up and join one of the fraternities already on campus,” he says.

The 18 founding members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

The founding members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha: Wayne C. Harvey, Henry Brown (first row), David B. Price, Wayne R. Davis (second row), Maurice W. Murray, John H. Jackson, Lloyd Sowell, Gregory Bester, Louis W. Smith, Walter G. Reed (third row), Howard Manning Jr., John D. Abrams Jr. (fourth row), Robert L. Coleman, Gerald Lyons (fifth row), Reginald L. Ollie, Daniel H. Flowers (sixth row), Theodore T. Marsh Jr., Paul L. Silvers Jr. (seventh row), and Eugene D. Jackson (eighth row). Not pictured: James E. Brown III. Contributed photo

Using the clout of Lawrence C. George, who had agreed to be the fraternity’s resident advisor, the students eventually convinced school administrators to approve the new fraternity. George, a respected Rolla chemist, was an alumnus of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Beta Pi chapter at Dillard University.

With a resident advisor, the fraternity was now in need of a house. Once again, the fraternity got pushback – this time from local real estate agents.

“You have to think about what Rolla was like in the ’60s – a small, Midwestern town,” says Brown, a native of St. Joseph, Missouri.

The fraternity spent the spring and part of that summer contacting local real estate agents for house tours. Brown says that fraternity members had no trouble scheduling tours by phone, but when they showed up in person, they were almost always turned away.

With traditional housing options exhausted, George once again stepped in to help. He had an acquaintance who owned a former car dealership that was willing to sell the property to the new fraternity. It wasn’t ideal, but the fraternity brothers worked every day that summer to rehab and convert the building into suitable housing.

George, who only stepped down as the fraternity’s advisor in 2013, passed away in March. “He was very influential on not just us, but the well-being of all black students in Rolla,” said Akil Hutchins, a senior in engineering management from St. Louis.

“He touched a lot of people’s lives,” added Lister Florence, 1995 civil engineering graduate and the fraternity’s current advisor. “He was a father figure in my life.”

Through a half century of service at S&T, Alpha Phi Alpha has been instrumental in forming a number of student and faculty organizations focused on diversity and inclusion, including the Association for Black Students, National Society of Black Engineers, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on African American Recruitment and Retention, and Black Man’s Think Tank. The fraternity also helped bring the Minority Introduction to Technology and Engineering summer camp to campus and created a number of scholarships for minority students.

Members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha hanging out at the 1969 Greek Week; two fraternity brothers enjoying the 61st “Best Ever” St. Pats; the fraternity’s original house, as pictured in 1965. Contributed photos by Henry Brown

Members of the Epsilon Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha hanging out at the 1969 Greek Week (clockwise from left); two fraternity brothers enjoying the 61st “Best Ever” St. Pats; the fraternity’s original house, as pictured in 1965. Contributed photos by Henry Brown

With Alpha Phi Alpha’s continuing involvement in diverse service projects and organizations on campus, the fraternity promises to be a voice for minority students for the foreseeable future.

Florence says he certainly owes a great deal to the fraternity.

“I don’t think I would have become the man I am today without Alpha Phi Alpha,” Florence says. “They did a really good job, not just with the fraternity members, but everyone, of reaching out to African-Americans, Hispanics and students of other nationalities. The door’s were always open,” he says. “They understood what you were going through. They understood what it was like to be singled out.”

Nowadays, you may recognize an Alpha Phi Alpha brother as someone you emphatically high-fived last Friday at the entrance to the Havener Center, but the brothers of the Epsilon Psi Chapter do so much more than brighten your “Phriday.”

 

Every February, the fraternity sponsors a National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in conjunction with Black History Month. Members also organize outreach events in conjunction with their national organization, such as A Voteless People is a Hopeless People and Go-To-High School, Go-To-College. And they host Missouri’s longest-running collegiate dance competition, Dance XXXPLOSION. The 2015 event will be held at the ARK in Waynesville, Missouri, this April.

The fraternity will also be hosting a week long 50th anniversary celebration centered around the chapter’s charter day on April 27. The celebration will begin in earnest with a welcome reception on Thursday, April 23 at 6 p.m., and will feature a golf tournament, bowling tournament, flag football game, BBQ, and roast and dance. More details will be posted to the fraternity’s website as the event nears.

By Greg Katski

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A study in service

December 17, 2014 by
Alyssa Luczak

Biochemical engineering sophomore Alyssa Luczak has been volunteering at All God’s Children Daycare through The Community Partnership for her humanitarian engineering and science minor. Photo by Sam O’Keefe

Although they come from different places and backgrounds, the first students to minor in humanitarian engineering and science at S&T have at least one thing in common – a desire to change the world for the better.

Founded in fall 2014, the HES minor offers a multi-disciplinary approach to improving the well-being of the underserved in the community and throughout the world through volunteer work and service learning.

Before the semester, Curt Elmore, professor of geological engineering and leader of the program, put a call out to interested students, inviting them to a presentation about the new minor. “He said he could only pick five students,” says sophomore Alicia McCabe, one of the students chosen.

Fellow sophomores Danielle Sheahan, Brianna Works, Kataryna Kraemer and Alyssa Luczak joined McCabe as the first to pursue the minor.

Elmore says that the students were a good fit for the program based on their previous volunteer work and their desire to make a positive impact on the world.

The minor requires at least 60 hours of formal experiential service learning; 20 hours a semester for three semesters. Each student is partnered with a campus, local or regional organization, and fulfills her volunteer hours through them. Elmore says he tries to match students up with organizations that have projects they are interested in or have a passion for.

Luczak, a biochemical engineering student from Chicago, works with The Community Partnership. Through The Community Partnership, Luczak has been volunteering at All God’s Children Daycare on North Olive Street.

Danielle Sheahan, Alicia McCabe, Kataryna Kraemer, Alyssa Luczak and Brianna Works

Left to right: Danielle Sheahan, Alicia McCabe, Kataryna Kraemer, Alyssa Luczak and Brianna Works are the first S&T students to minor in humanitarian engineering and science. Photo by Sam O’Keefe

She says she has always enjoyed working with children, but a young boy at the daycare center, in particular, touched her heart. He was shy and had social anxiety, and grew up in foster care, she says. “I knew he really liked bugs and insects, so I brought him a small microscope and some toy insects one day, and showed him how to view them,” she says.

“He has really taken to it,” Luczak adds, fighting tears.

Kraemer, a geological engineering student, is helping organize Phelps County Bank’s 2015 Take a Stand Against Child Abuse event. During the event, which takes place every July, children and their parents sell lemonade from stands set up throughout the community to help raise funds to prevent child abuse in the area.

A native of Barnhart, Missouri, Kraemer mentored troubled students in high school. “Kids that had just gotten out of rehabilitation, mostly for drug addictions or problems with parents,” she says.

McCabe, an environmental engineering student from Creve Coeur, Missouri, is also working with Phelps County Bank. Knowing her interest in computers, PCB assigned her to a project repurposing old computers for households in need.

Sheahan, an environmental engineering student from St. Louis, is partnered with Missouri River Relief, a nonprofit that holds community cleanups of the river and its tributaries. And Works, a geological engineering student from Ozark, Missouri, is developing strategies for poverty alleviation for the Phelps County Faith Distribution, a local, volunteer-based organization that serves the area needy with groceries and other items.

The students say they’re grateful for their service experiences so far, and look forward to further helping the community through the HES minor.

“I’ve always wanted to help people,” says McCabe. “Through this minor, I can help people and get college credit for it.”

By Greg Katski

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For family, for country, for the future

September 30, 2014 by
For family, for country, for the future

Luis Pereira helps organize an annual recruitment retreat for Hispanic and Latino high school students who want to learn more about STEM fields. Photo by Sam O’Keefe.

Nearly everything Luis Pereira does, he does for future Hispanic college students, especially his four-year-old brother, Johann. [Read more…]

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