A delegation of students and faculty members from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’s School of Mines in Medellín and the University of Texas at Arlington recently spent a week at Colorado School of Mines, hosted by the Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities project. Funding for the visit and project came from a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) program and the Mines Humanitarian Engineering Program.
“We are very honored host the Universidad Nacional de Colombia students and faculty at Mines, as they have spent the past four years generously hosting our faculty and students at our research sites in and around Medellín,” said Jessica Smith, director of the Humanitarian Engineering and Science graduate program. “None of our research and undergraduate design projects in Colombia would have been possible without the support of Professor Oscar Restrepo and his students.”
The School of Mines at the Universidad Nacional (UNAL) is the oldest and most respected program of its kind in Colombia, and they were recently ranked as the No. 1 undergraduate program in the country.
The exchange was a unique opportunity for the Colombian engineering students – ten women and two men, said Restrepo, professor in the Department of Materials and Minerals at the UNAL School of Mines. “A very important aspect was to have direct knowledge of different initiatives of interaction between engineers and communities and to learn about the methodologies that have been successfully implemented.”
A surprise bonus? Being able to experience snow for the first time during one of Colorado’s infamous late spring storms.
Throughout the week, the students from Colombia and Texas were joined by faculty and students from Mines’ Humanitarian Engineering and Science program. They met with Mines senior leadership from the Office of Global Initiatives, Office of Research & Technology Transfer, and Center for Sustainable Mining. They visited cutting-edge labs, including the GeoMakerSpace, Center for Space Resources and the Earth Mechanics Institute and spent a day touring the Climax Mill and National Mining Museum in Leadville. They participated in workshops led by leaders in community engagement at Corps Africa; in creative capacity building at MIT-D Lab; and in social innovation at Escuela de Innovación Social in Colombia, created and implemented in Colombia by Uniminuto (Universidad Minuto de Dios). They also had multiple opportunities to share their research with each other.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up