Hey all! I apologize for writing this so late (finals, summer stuff, blah blah, various excuses), but I am so so excited to write about my experience at the 2023 Northeast Conference!
Back in April, Becca and I presented at UConn about our past project in Tanzania, which is finally all wrapped up as we are preparing for our first trip to Ecuador (more to come on that in August)!!
This was my first time attending a conference besides college fairs and FIRST robotics events, so I was crazy nervous. I distinctly remember trying on a million different outfits to try and be professional, but not too professional, and then decided on a t-shirt and slacks… and proceeded to spend half the car ride (I took a hard nap for the other half) anxious about the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt and slacks.
UConn’s campus was really pretty. It looked exactly how you would picture a college campus for the college version of some Netflix movie like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, or Kissing Booth. It was pristine and perfect and kind of generic, just like the neighborhoods all the main characters of those movies live in… but… you know… college. Nevertheless, it was a large contrast from the unique Yale buildings that I had become accustomed to.
When we got to the conference, there weren’t terribly many people, as it was smaller this year (yay Covid). They had bagels and fruit waiting for us, and it was really sweet. Our hosts were amazing, shout out to UConn, EWB USA, and Pratt & Whitney.
Then it was time for the breakout sessions. There were three options per timeslot, and everything was recorded for future reference, or if there were multiple rooms going on that you were interested in (linked below). I personally went to the sessions for the Eastern Africa In Country Office, Interviewing and Resumes Corporate Seminar, Water Treatment/Wastewater Epidemiology, 3D Mapping Technology Tutorial, and a Well Seminar. Becca and I presented during the last session, which was a littel nerve-wracking, but also kind of nice.
My favorite session, while the Well group was absolutely wonderful, was the Wastewater Epidemiology session, which was run by Yale’s very own Alessandro Zulli! He worked with Jordan Peccia (our amazing Faculty Supervisor) on analyzing trends in Covid spikes (and other diseases) through the use of wastewater. This research was able to help local hospitals prepare for spikes in Covid rates, which I thought was super cool both scientifically, and because it was conducted by people that are closely tied to our EWB Chapter. I’ll link one of their papers below if you’re interested!
Now, our presentation. I, personally, didn’t go on any Tanzania trips, but I helped Cosima with the health data that was collected, so I primarily talked about our Water Poverty Index (WPI), and the general overview of our trip. Becca focused on the practices we used in-country and how the trips were run. The presentation went really well, with the exceptions of some bugs in the zoom recording (sadness), and, of course, a lot of nerves. Side note: when we got the zoom up and running again, I saw that my grandparents were watching from home, and ughhh it was so sweet. I love them.
After we finished presenting, the audience members had a lot of great questions about running trips, etc., and it was really nice to talk to them about how trips were going for them, how they were collecting data, communicating with community members, and also just how they were handling high turnover rates and reconstruction of their chapters due to Covid. It was comforting to see that other chapters were going through similar experiences as us in various areas of what EWB does, and that we always have support from these other chapters.
I hope that we can bring more students to the conference next year, and that we’ll be able to talk about not only our experiences in Tanzania, but also in Ecuador!
Thank you all for reading!
Anna Oehlerking
Links:
One of Jordan and Alessandro’s 2020 Papers