To help local populations in Honduras secure clean water, the student engineering team AguaClara is working to develop three water treatment plants in the country — an addition to the five Honduran plants the team has already helped build.

Following a publically broadcasted invitation from President Barack Obama, children and parents from around the country gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Science and Engineering Festival on Oct. 23 and 24. Hosted by the global security company, Lockheed Martin, the festival strove to re-invigorate the interest of the nation’s youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational and entertaining science gathering in the nation. The festival had over 100 sponsors, including the university.

During the 1980s, Prof. Monroe Weber-Shirk, civil and environmental engineering, volunteered in Latin American refugee camps. At the time, he was convinced that he would devote the rest of his life to development work in Latin America, but his plans were thwarted by a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease and his return to the U.S. for treatment. While pursuing a Ph.D. at Cornell, he placed his aspirations of improving the quality of life in Latin America on the back burner. A few years ago, he received a serendipitous phone call that put into motion an engineering project that would make his decades-long dream come true.