IRES: Socially and environmentally responsible engineering for enhancing livelihoods within mining communities

This international research experiences for students (IRES) project provides U.S. students from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and Colorado School of Mines (CSM) the opportunity to perform cutting edge research in collaboration with faculty and students at the University Nacional of Colombia- Medellin Campus (UNAL-Medellin). The aim of the project is to provide international research experiences for students, with the goal of developing students and future engineering leaders with diverse, globally engages skills through linking international research with education and professional development. Student researchers and their faculty mentors will combine science and engineering with community-based participatory research (CBPR) to develop research that promotes socially just and environmentally responsible mining livelihoods. This work directly supports the NSF’s mission, catalyzing interdisciplinary science and engineering research at the socio-technical frontier while also merging ideas, approaches and technologies from diverse fields to stimulate discovery and innovation. Regarding students, impacts are designed to inspire and train the next generation of U.S. scientists and engineers to (1) collaborate among diverse cohorts including international students and partners (2) work on technical and non-technical aspects of the project (3) grow leadership skills and research interests and (4) build professional networks and cultural intelligence. IRES recruitment will focus on providing research opportunities to students who have not had similar experiences, with an emphasis on recruiting and engaging underrepresented groups in STEM. Research translation activities are designed to facilitate the distribution of research broadly. The connection to multiple classroom experiences will further institutionalize international STEM education. This project explores emerging topics in the prevention, remediation, and restoration of environments where mining is a key livelihood activity, providing opportunities to work at the intersection of social science and environmental engineering theories of participatory design, implementation, and evaluation. While many research-based technical interventions have been developed, almost none have achieved long-term use because they are – or believed by miners to be – inefficient, uneconomical, or impractical. This work breaks this cycle by co-designing and implementing technologies and processes as socio-technical systems with miners and local communities. Secondly, existing research on the environmental dimensions of mining livelihoods mainly focuses on pollution prevention and human exposure, with little attention given to reuse and remediation, including the activities miners are already undertaking in this area or the role they could play co-designing with engineering faculty and students. The project draws on the collaboration of communities, scientists, and engineers to collaborate in the design and technical solutions that are grounded in the social context of the project sites. This approach will advance social science and environmental engineering theories of participatory design, implementation, and evaluation of engineered systems by examining the integration of local knowledge into such efforts. The unique structure of this program will allow students to bridge knowledge gaps in new ways and receive training only enabled by this IRES partnership. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.