Crossing Borders
Gina Palino, BS, Civil Engineering 2013, whose peers laud her for her intense motivation to help less fortunate people around the world, served as Uganda program director of Northeastern’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. EWB-NEU, one of five student chapters in Greater Boston, built wells to provide fresh drinking water to Bbanda, Uganda, in 2010 and is at work on a water distribution system to pump water throughout the village. The project seeks to eliminate several hours that villagers spend traveling to and from the wells each week.
As the program director, Palino taught the Bbandans more about their water than the technical aspects of the projects. In March 2012, to help the group return to Uganda, she helped raise $2500 in public funding through Northeastern’s Catalyst program.
Story credit: boston.com
Co-op Experience
Designing compounds on co-op with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biopharmaceutical company, prepared Burns for his third coop at Dana-Farber. At Millenium, he created more than 100 molecules over two six-month experiential-learning opportunities with the company. “I was doing cutting-edge chemistry with new reagents and new chemicals that scientists have just begun using in this decade,” he said. The undergraduate student-researcher said he quickly became an integral part of the team. “Millennium did a great job of engaging me,” he explained. “I felt like I belonged there and that I was making an important contribution.”