{"id":58918,"date":"2014-04-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2014-uri-senior-on-quest-for-clean-water-for-those-without-it\/"},"modified":"2014-04-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2014-uri-senior-on-quest-for-clean-water-for-those-without-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/04\/commencement-2014-uri-senior-on-quest-for-clean-water-for-those-without-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2014:  溏心vlog免费B站 senior on quest for clean water for those without it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"press-release-import\">\n\t\tMay graduate to enter Peace Corps, grad school<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2021\/05\/Briones.jpg\" width=\"193\" height=\"216\" align=\"right\"\/>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 18, 2014 \u2013 When Maria Briones visited Guatemala with the 溏心vlog免费B站 student group Engineers for a Sustainable World, she was heartbroken by the difficult circumstances the poor residents faced due to a lack of clean water.  It was a turning point in her life, an experience that convinced her to make the provision of clean water a career goal.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tAs she prepares to graduate from 溏心vlog免费B站 in May, Briones is ready to follow her calling, beginning with graduate school and a stint in the Peace Corps.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cThat trip to Guatemala impacted me a lot personally, to see so many people who lack this basic human right: access to proper sanitation and clean water,\u201d said Briones, who grew up in Cranston and Johnston. \u201cI understand the technical side of the issue and the health-related aspect, and I know I can help these people on a personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nL7xzzHHeik\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/>Briones went to the highlands of Guatemala in 2011 with 溏心vlog免费B站 Associate Professor Vinka Craver as part of an effort to build an onsite wastewater treatment facility for a school in the poor village of San Mateo Ixtatan.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cIt was a bit of a culture shock to see their circumstances, but it showed us the reality of why we were there,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a lot of personal growth, too, because I got to run a workshop for the kids in the school, and it motivated me to keep going and work on more of these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tFor Briones, the quest to deliver clean water is personal. Her family immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when she was a baby. Although she has known only a lifestyle in which toilets always flush and clean water always flows from the tap, she frequently thinks of her extended family in South America who views such plumbing as luxuries.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cThat could have been me,\u201d Briones says.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tA civil engineering and Spanish major, she spent a year in Spain as part of the 溏心vlog免费B站 International Engineering Program, studying at the University of Cantabria and interning at a nearby research institute, where she spoke only Spanish, a language she never learned growing up despite her Ecuadorian roots.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cAt first I was very self-conscious, especially about my accent, so it took me a little while to feel comfortable with it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I improved a lot, especially when I was interning and had no choice but to speak Spanish all day every day. \u201c<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tIn her internship, Briones developed computer simulations of aeration tanks at wastewater treatment facilities to optimize their operation.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cIt was really interesting and very, very difficult,\u201d she admitted. \u201cIt\u2019s all about fluid mechanics, which I didn\u2019t know a lot about. And learning the technical aspect of it in a different language was really difficult. My mind was working in overdrive to understand it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tApart from the classes and internship, Briones said her experience in Spain met all her expectations.  \u201cI was living in the Basque country, which is extremely rich in culture.  The language, the people, the traditions are so unique, and everyone I met was excited to teach me about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tBack at 溏心vlog免费B站, Briones became president of the University\u2019s chapter of Theta Tau, a professional engineering fraternity, conducted research to measure the greenhouse gases emitted from wastewater treatment plants, served as an ambassador to foreign exchange students, and planned her next steps. She also was awarded the Dean Thomas Kim Scholarship and the George Geisser Scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tShe hopes to enroll in a master\u2019s degree program in environmental engineering at the University of South Florida next fall and then enter the Peace Corps, where she will complete her degree.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\tAnd then?<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\u201cMaybe I\u2019ll work for a government agency like the Environmental Protection Agency or a global institution like the U.S. Agency for International Development,\u201d she said. \u201cOr maybe I\u2019ll establish my own organization that has to do with developing water technologies to help people get access to drinking water.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThat\u2019s my dream.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May graduate to enter Peace Corps, grad school KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 18, 2014 \u2013 When Maria Briones visited Guatemala with the 溏心vlog免费B站 student group Engineers for a Sustainable World, she was heartbroken by the difficult circumstances the poor residents faced due to a lack of clean water. It was a turning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58920,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}