Georgia Tech students engineered a repeat of the school’s 2023 results, finishing in the top three positions in the Georgia Association of Water Professionals’ (GAWP) student design competition.
At the organization’s spring regional competition, environmental engineering teams from the capstone design course took first and second place, while a multidisciplinary team from the Engineers Without Borders student chapter won third place.
GAWP’s Student Design Competition promotes real-world design experience for students interested in pursuing education and a career in the water and wastewater field. The student teams submit a written report of their project and follow it up with an oral presentation before a panel of judges. Five spring Environmental capstone teams and one fall semester team from Tech entered the competition.
The “Mississippi Phosphates Superfund Leachate Treatment” project team comprised of Lauren Jackson, Shruti Sarkar, Zelda Siegel and Desirae Sievers was awarded first prize. The team won $5,500 for travel expenses for the four and their advisor, Professor of the Practice Sharon Just, to compete in the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) international student design competition in New Orleans this fall.
The team, along with their advisor, Just, completed a field visit to the Superfund site near Pascagoula, Miss., in February.
Prof. Sharon Just, Lauren Horst, Molly Booker and Dhanya Ravikrishnan.
Second place was awarded to Molly Booker, Lauren Horst, and Dhanya Ravikrishnan for their project “Finding the Flint: Headwaters Nature Preserve.” This team is also eligible to compete in the WEFTEC international student design competition this fall.
Third place went to a team from Tech’s Engineers Without Borders student chapter, GT Malawi, and their project, “Sanitation Solutions.” The members who presented were Grace Marek, Iman Al-Harthy, Priyali Bandla and Shreya Terala. Professor Hermann Fritz and Professor of the Practice Fred Meyer have served as the team’s advisors.
Just advised the first and second place winning teams and emphasized that each member of all the Tech teams spoke during their presentations. “The panel of judges, as well as the audience, were universally congratulatory to all of the teams, commenting on the quality of everyone’s presentation and noting how tight the competition was,” she said.