We are a team of engineers, physicians, and social scientists from the University of Wisconsin and the non-profit Engineers Without Borders working to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the least developed and developing countries.
The goals of our work are to protect the lives of healthcare workers, while simultaneously securing the livelihoods of the communities in which they work. We aim to achieve this by:
This website organizes many of the documents and resources we've developed, including response roadmaps, product evaluations, regulatory guidance, and more.
The goals of our work are to protect the lives of healthcare workers, while simultaneously securing the livelihoods of the communities in which they work. We aim to achieve this by:
- Enabling local production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices
- Providing strategic response direction for ministries of health, local governments, NGOs, etc.
- Building local capacity within universities and other entities to respond to the pandemic and re-open their doors and local economies
- Developing and contributing to systems strengthening initiatives for our international partners
This website organizes many of the documents and resources we've developed, including response roadmaps, product evaluations, regulatory guidance, and more.
Our Team:
Rebecca Alcock, M.S. is a Ph.D. student in Operations Research at UW–Madison. She also has a B.S. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering with a certificate in International Engineering. Her research sits at the intersection of design, engineering, and the social sciences to tackle global inequality. Rebecca’s involvement in this work has led to projects in Guatemala, Kenya, and India. As a graduate research assistant for the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Laboratory, she has directed strategic improvements of the electronics branch of the Makerspace, led workshops in different technology areas for UW–Madison students and the wider community, coordinated Makerspace outreach and education programs, and developed curriculum for a rapid prototyping course (Design and Make (Almost) Anything).
Most recently, she was instrumental to the Makerspace team that developed the Badger Shield in response to a PPE shortage in the state of Wisconsin. In addition to her work on campus, she is a volunteer with Engineers Without Borders, where she has served as a field fellow in rural Guatemala and as project principal on several international projects including a suspension bridge, a safe drinking water project, and most recently, a COVID-19 local PPE production project. Currently, she is the international COVID-19 engagement coordinator in the International Projects Office. |
Jess Thayer is a Mechanical Engineer and long-time Engineers Without Borders USA volunteer who has led the charge to incorporate Biomedical Engineering into EWB-USA’s healthcare facilities projects and disaster response efforts. Since the widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began in March, Jess and the UW/EWB team have launched local PPE production and medical equipment repair efforts in over 10 countries with more than 200,000 PPE pieces delivered to date.
Jess graduated with her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering 2019 with a concentration in Engineering Leadership and her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2020 at Marquette University. She has been a volunteer with EWB-USA for 6 years and has had the privilege to work on several infrastructure projects in Guatemala before serving as the Wisconsin State Representative on the EWB-USA Great Lakes Regional Steering Committee for two years. She is currently based in Connecticut as a Surgical Robotics Controls Engineer for Medtronic. |
Kayla Heumer feels extremely grateful to be working with Engineers without Borders COVID response and is inspired by the "can-do" attitude of everyone on the team amidst the challenges of the pandemic. She joined the group in May and has been focusing on evaluating the myriad of low-cost ventilator projects that have sprung up around the globe. Her favorite part thus far has been speaking with the project manager and manufacturers of NASA's low-cost "Vital" Ventilator as she's a huge fan of NASA and their med tech development.
Kayla graduated from UW in '18 with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and will be heading to graduate school at Stanford this fall to study the intersection of machine learning, healthcare diagnostics, and technology interventions in global health. |
Amanda Pustis is an Electrical Engineer at Affiliated Engineers, Inc. in Madison, WI where she designs electrical power distribution systems for hospitals, vivariums, research labs and universities all around the world. Prior to working at AEI, she studied at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York where she received her Bachelor's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. As an engineer, she is passionate about facing unique challenges that expand her technical knowledge and allow her to make a difference in the world. She is an active member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers(SHPE), Society of Women Engineers(SWE) and Engineers Without Borders(EWB) – where she is part of the UNDP COVID-19 response team.
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Sophia Camarota joined the Engineers Without Borders COVID-19 response team to help with organization of content into user friendly PDFs for the project’s website. She quickly became excited about the team’s work and has enjoyed the continued opportunity to help with research and small website design tasks.
Sophia is a civil engineering major at Marquette University and has been involved with the Marquette EWB chapter since her freshman year. In the coming years, Sophia plans to continue her involvement with EWB and pursue her interests in sustainability. |
Alexandra Quiles is a volunteer of the UNDP COVID-19 project. Since joining the team, Alex has taken on the responsibility of translating educational content from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. Alex attends Marquette University as an Environmental Engineer. At Marquette University she holds a leadership role as President of the Engineers Without Borders-Marquette University Chapter (EWB-MU). As President her role includes working with a student executive board to ensure project deadlines are met, fundraising goals are met, and local service opportunities are offered to the general student chapter. After graduating Marquette University in the Spring of 2022, Alex plans on continuing to live EWB-USA’s mission statement of empowering local and international communities through sustainable infrastructure while working alongside these communities.
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Emily Lakeman is an undergraduate assistant for the UNDP COVID-19 project. After joining the team in the spring she has helped with Spanish translations, poster design, research, launching the COVID-19 response website, as well as ventilator part orders for six hospitals in Guatemala. Outside of this team Emily is an undergraduate studying Biological Systems Engineering at UW–Madison. She got involved in this team through being Project Manager for UW–Madison EWB-Guatemala Program. Emily is excited to be getting more involved in non-profit international humanitarian engineering projects though this team and plans to persue this area of work furthur upon graduation in the spring of 2021.
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Herman Feller is a former project manager with Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin and a volunteer with the Engineers Without Borders UNDP COVID-19 project. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelors degree in biomedical engineering and a Master's degree in Biomechanics. He has been helping research designs for affordable equipment to combat the pandemic for communities around the world and working with the translation team to help translate documents from English to Spanish.
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Callie Mataczynski is majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a global health certificate and pre-med track at UW-Madison. She became interested in going abroad in 2016 when she studied in China for 2.5 months. She furthered her abroad experience the next year when she researched Tuberculosis in India. Ever since then, she has taken the opportunity to learn, grow, and strive to be an advocate for world change. When COVID-19 happened, it gave her a chance to help the world and is why she is now involved in EWB. She hopes to continue her path in global health and engineering and is excited to be a part of this team in a world effort to end COVID-19.
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