2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Co-Designing Engineering Service Trips for Semi-Rural Amazonian Communities

Presented at International Division (INTL) Poster Session

In 2025, a group of students from an interdisciplinary team at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) organized a service trip to implement water purification systems in remote Amazonian communities in Ecuador. The goal of the trip was to provide safe drinking water by installing purification units at a local community school, delivering technical training on system maintenance, and conducting sanitation and hygiene education for community members. The intervention was co-designed with the community, following participatory design principles, to ensure that the solutions met the local cultural and environmental needs. This experience focused on the challenges and lessons learned during the co-design process, which were compiled into a best practices manual to support future projects in similar rural and rainforest settings. The project proposed adapting this methodology to facilitate collaboration between students, faculty, stakeholders, and communities for future humanitarian engineering interventions in Amazonian regions.

Authors

Gabriel Alejandro Vasco
Willam Nic Loza
Vanessa Guerra University of Virginia
Dr. MiguelAndres Guerra http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7496-3753 Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ [biography]

MiguelAndres is an Associate Professor in the Polytechnic College of Science and Engineering at Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering from USFQ, a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering in Construction Engineering and Project Management from Iowa State University, a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with emphasis in Sustainable Construction from Virginia Tech, and two Graduate Certificates from Virginia Tech in Engineering Education and Future Professoriate and from USFQ in Structures for Construction Professionals. MiguelAndres’s research includes Architectural and Civil Engineering Project Management, Sustainable and Resilient Urban Infrastructure, and the development of engineers who not only have strong technical and practical knowledge but the social awareness and agency to address global humanitarian, environmental, and social justice challenges. For him, social justice is a concept that should always be involved in discussions on infrastructure. Related to STEM education, Miguel Andres develops disruptive pedagogies for STEM courses as a tool for innovation, and assessing engineering students’ agency to address climate change. Currently, MiguelAndres is working on a framework to support and conduct undergraduate research.
Ignacio Guerra P. [biography]

Ignacio is a professor of Construction and Sustainability in the College of Architecture and Interior Design CADI at Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ. Ignacio is an architect from UCE and gained his MBA with emphasis in sustainability from the UCV. Ignacio’s interests are in the areas of sustainable architecture and construction, new pedagogies for architecture studies and development. Ignacio is passionate to bring his experience in the construction industry into the classroom.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

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