I3@USD-Fall 2025

its faculty members, students and the surrounding community. “If you want to do meaningful work as an educational institution, you must connect with local communities,” he says. “It’s an important step. Those connections are needed to find out what a village or region is about, and that work starts before you get there. It was important to meet colleagues and students via Zoom to establish a baseline connection. Otherwise, you risk going somewhere as an outsider and remaining an outsider. We consider all members we interact with as equal contributors to these efforts.” In the years since, six separate trips to the region — some with just faculty members, others including USD students — have deepened those bonds. Bellizzi conducted her research alongside Christina Kozlovski ’20 (ME). Since then, Christopher Angelo ’25 (ME), along with a senior design team, have picked up where their peers left off, with a goal to come up with a sustainable, locally sourced solution that shows promise for being renewable, inexpensive and able to be assembled on-site. The potential solution began by asking people in the region for input. “Spearheaded by nursing, we conducted a study asking the Ugandan community about the suitability of solutions to water filtration. The ideal

device doesn’t need much human work and needs to be fast,” Jacobitz explains. “There needs to be a way to power it in communities without electrical power.” During USD’s 2025 Spring Break, a group of students accompanied by Jacobitz traveled to Uganda to continue making personal connections. “It’s important to see the reality. These problems can’t just be solved with technology; we have to have the connection,” he says. “I love that we have actual partners in Uganda.” The benefits to students can’t be overstated. “Most come back changed in one way or another, which, in itself, is a success,” says Jacobitz. Rebekah Mauk ’25 (ME) felt a profound impact from her journey to Uganda. “When I heard about this international opportunity, I applied immediately,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘Let’s meet the people we are trying to help and see the problem we’re working to fix.’ ” The goal was true collaboration and connection. “When we went to Kagango, the home village of MUST student Evans Keinerugaba, we met his family, who welcomed us with open arms. I felt honored to be welcomed into their space, and to do research and help be part of the solution,” says Mauk. For Avery Aquino ’25 (IntE), being in the region evoked conflicting emotions. “When we talked to the

people who’ll be using this device, I saw their excitement, but it was heartbreaking as well, since they were hoping for an immediate solution. While we gave them a sliver of hope, this work takes a long time.” “Going to Uganda gave me a different perspective, and the realization that I come from a very privileged background,” notes Nicolette Monge ’25 (ME). “To see how people live in another part of the world was eye-opening. Water is so valuable to them; it’s a vital resource that we take for granted.” There’s a real urgency to solving the filtration challenges, since the local community continues to drink contaminated water. Using organic materials, such as plant xylem, may be one answer to cleaning water from biological contaminants. MUST faculty member and Deputy Dean Denis Bbosa has honed in on one specific path. “He came up with the idea of extracting water from banana plants,” explains Jacobitz. “When fruit is harvested from these plants, the rest of the plant is thrown away. If we can extract water from those plants — and the water is of decent quality — that could be a solution for a large chunk of Uganda’s rural population. We’re making it a priority to find a solution in as short a time as possible.”

A Collective Effort Working Toward Access to Clean Water in Uganda I n a global population with countless urgent humanitarian needs, access to clean water is at to the University of San Diego’s attention through Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science’s former faculty member, Anita Hunter, child development being adversely affected by contaminated water. Hunter was instrumental in efforts to found the hospital, which broke ground in 2008. Since then, a multidisciplinary team By Julene Snyder

the top of the list. “While most countries have access to water sources, not all these sources are considered reliable, or clean, by the standards set by the World Health Organization,” noted Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering 2020 Valedictorian, Ava Bellizzi ’20 (ME), when describing her senior design project. The pressing need for a scalable water filtration system first came

PhD, RN, who was approached by a Catholic church in Poway that was concerned about the high death rates of children in Mbarara, Uganda, recalls Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering Frank Jacobitz, PhD. Mbarara, the second largest city in the country, is home to Holy Innocents Children Hospital, where caregivers saw a pattern of

from USD — involving chemistry, biology, nursing and engineering — has considered ways to improve water quality, community health and water treatment options in rural Uganda. When Mbarara University Science and Technology (MUST) established an engineering campus in 2020, Jacobitz saw an opportunity to partner with

14

15

USD ENGINEERING

IMAGINE•INNOVATE•INSPIRE