Student Spotlights
Jemal Seid
Jemal Seid is a Mortenson Center Online Graduate Certificate student from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Geology from Mekelle University in Mekelle, Ethiopia and a master’s degree in Engineering Geology at Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Currently, Jemal works as a WASH Consultant for IRCWASH Ethiopia where he works with local WASH actors to monitor and build the capacity of WASH systems. In the past, he worked with the Ethiopian Ministry of Water and Energy, supervising groundwater projects.
Jemal learned about the Mortenson Center when he worked on a USAID WASH project in Ethiopia. During the project, he met colleagues from CU Boulder that introduced him to the university and the Mortenson Center. His favorite part of the Mortenson Center is the supportive and friendly community, and the multidisciplinary courses. When Jemal completes his certificate, he plans to use the knowledge and experience he has gained to work in global development as a well-rounded engineer that can look at all of the components of a project, not just the technical pieces.Ìý
Outside of academia, Jemal likes to watch the sunrises and sunsets and try to identify the planets visible in the sky.
Above, he is pictured standing on a footbridge. Jemal is pictured below, standing while giving a training to local Ethiopian WASH actors and UNICEF staff on how to use the mWater platform to manage WASH assets.
Jessica Darby
Jessica Darby is an undergraduate student studying environmental engineering at CU Boulder who is interested in using science and technology to solve natural-world problems.
As a freshman and sophomore, Jessica was in the Global Engineering Resident Academic Program (RAP), which gave her a sense of belonging in the CU community. This inspired her to become a RAP Assistant this year and create that community for other students.
Jessica also conducts research with the Mortenson Center as an Undergraduate Research Assistant. She works alongside Mortenson Center students Emily Bedell and Olivia Harmon developing a low-cost fluorescence sensor for bacterial enumeration in water distribution systems in low- and middle-income countries. Jessica was previously involved in research for the CUSew project, studying COVID levels on campus via wastewater monitoring.
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Outside of classes and research, Jessica enjoys learning the art of bonsai, Sudoku puzzles, and playing card and board games. Her favorite thing about the Mortenson Center is the close-knit community of engineers and the variety of ways to get involved.Ìý
Ilham Siddiq
Ilham Siddiq grew up in a remote village in Aceh, Indonesia. Growing up, he was fascinated by the outer world, amazed by the cityscape pictures on the wall calendar or some foreign language on a condensed milk can. Then, the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami happened and took away his home and countless family members, including his mother. During the aftermath of the event and the three-decade-long insurgency war it helped to end, Ilham met with a few of the thousands of humanitarian workers, both foreign and local, who came to help with the massive reconstruction project. He was fascinated by their demeanor and language and they sparked in him a relentless urge to learn English. As he grew older, Ilham realized that his home was devastated to such an extreme extent, not because of the scale of the tsunami, but because his community was not prepared for it. He also witnessed many reconstruction projects in Aceh failing or causing harm because of their misalignment with local needs and contexts. This made him realize that there is much more to post-disaster response and reconstruction than sound engineering calculations.
Ilham’s experiences set him on the path to study civil engineering in order to learn how to build more resilient communities. While working for the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center, he met a Mortenson Center alum at an international conference on disaster risk reduction held in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Intrigued by his research, Ilham struck up a conversation with the alum during a lunch break. That three-hour conversation inspired him to become a part of the Mortenson Center. Today, he is a master's student in Civil Systems at the University of Colorado Boulder pursuing a Certificate in Global Engineering. He also holds a master's degree in Civil Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Universitas Muhammadiyah Aceh, Indonesia. Ilham’s favorite thing about the Mortenson Center is how members of the Mortenson Center community are passionate about equitable and emancipatory global development.
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