Montana Tech Environmental Design Team Brings Home Top Awards

Montana Technological University's Environmental Design Team recently competed in the WERC Environmental Design Competition. The 2021 team included Kris Bosch, Kelsey Parker, and Mami Scherman from the Environmental Engineering program and Amber Freebourn from the Professional & Technical Communication program.

The student teams were tasked with developing a "Treatment of Mining-Influenced Water Using Agricultural By-products to Sorb Metals." Freeport McMoran and Brown, and Caldwell sponsored the task.

The competing teams were from Louisiana State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Florida. The Montana Tech team won the first-place prize, which was a cash award of $2,500. Also, the team's project won a $1,250 cash award for the "Innovation in Sustainability Award" presented by Freeport McMoran.

Drs. Katherine Zodrow and David Hutchins were the advisors for this project. However, several other faculty members and staff across the campus helped in the success of the project. Dr. Kumar Ganesan, Department Head of the Environmental Engineering program, noted, "Our students consistently perform well in the design competition over the past 20 years or so. It proves again that our students are hard-working and innovative.