ENGINEERING: capstone design project
For my year-long capstone design project, I was a member of the Ecological Cookstove Team. We designed an improved wood-burning cookstove to better the standard of living for rural Nicaraguans. We partnered with a non-profit organization called El Porvenir; they have been actively helping the rural poor in the developing country of Nicaragua since 1990 via the construction of wells, latrines, village washing facilities, and cookstoves as well as by supporting reforestation projects. Their former cookstove design was not very efficient; our goal was to reduce smoke emissions into the home as well as reduce deforestation by lowering the amount of fuel required for cooking.
The Ecological Cookstove was shown to work more efficiently than the traditional three stone fire commonly used by rural Nicaraguans today. The main conclusions gathered throughout the course of the capstone design project include: our cookstove design achieved a 44% increase in thermal efficiency, when compared to a three stone open fire, due to the insulation, draft, combustion chamber, and interior dimensions; our cookstove design reduced wood consumption by 43%; time to boil was reduced by 49%; a cleaner combustion was achieved, as could be noted from the negligible amount of visible smoke exiting the chimney; and finally, the grate functioned by improving draft, resulting in a more complete combustion. If you would like to examine our design showcase poster or our final project report in detail, please click the corresponding button below.
MY exPerIeNCeS
MEDICINE: volunteering & RESEARCH
I am passionate about improving human health and am fascinated with medicine. As such, much of my extracurricular activities, including research and volunteer work, are medically oriented; they are listed and described below.
Health Sciences Scholars, The Ohio State University, 2010-Present
Voluntary Research Assistant, Transplant Surgery Department, OSU Wexner Medical Center, July 2012-May 2013
Student Volunteer, Head and Neck Oncology Clinic, OSU James Cancer Hospital, September 2011-May 2012
Student Assistant, Heart Failure Research Team, OSU Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, June 2011-May 2012
-
Independently designed and controlled system for patient screening via Microsoft Excel
-
Achieved proficiency in utilizing electronic medical record database
-
Supervised clinical rooms: maintained organization, updated inventory
-
Managed front desk: greeted and escorted patients, answered phone, handled miscellaneous clerical duties
Emergency Room Aid, Madison County Hospital, London, Ohio, June-August 2011
LIFE: WORK & FREE TIME
Outside of school, the majority of my time is spent working at Lucky’s Stout House, where I have been employed as a bartender since the summer of 2013 and quickly rose to become a manager in 2015. Lucky's is a typical campus bar, frequented by Ohio State students and bursting with Buckeye pride on game days (O-H-...!). Before Lucky's I worked at Texas Roadhouse for four years, beginning as a hostess and being promoted to a server after two years, which allowed me to land a bartending position without having any real experience.
Though being an engineering student and managing a bar typically don't relate, I was given an opportunity while taking FABE 2120: Thermodynamics in Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering. We were assigned to take a self-guided field trip somewhere that relates in some way to thermodynamics; the process of brewing beer employs several thermodynamic concepts, most notably the first and second laws. I noticed that two of the beers in the cooler behind the bar at Lucky's were from the Columbus Brewing Company, and realized that this would be the perfect place! If you would like to view a detailed memorandum of my experience at the brewery and how it relates to thermodynamics, please click the button above. From now on, when a guest orders a CBC beer, I am able to share my firsthand experience with them.