Dr. Aqlan hosts REU students as part of his NSF-funded C-EEEM project

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving educational environments that contribute to strengthening and diversifying the regional STEM workforce, especially in the Rust Belt cities. Eleven interns from Purdue University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UofL, and other local high schools participated this summer working on three different community-engaged projects with community mentors.

The three projects were: (i) an empathic design project focusing on increasing the walkability of the downtown area, (ii) a debris tracking program where a team is tracking the litter and debris all along the expansive Beargrass Creek to shed some light on how polluted these waters are in hopes to clean the creek up, and (iii) a food justice project to identify the disparities the west end of Louisville faces in terms of food accessibility, reliability, as well as transportation to access food markets.