Mortenson Center in
Global Engineering & Resilience
College of Engineering & Applied Science
Engineering Equitable Access for All
Leadership & Faculty
Evan Thomas, PhD, PE, MPH
Director & Mortenson Endowed Chair. Professor in CEAE and Aerospace.
Laura MacDonald, PhD
Managing Director. Water quality & climate finance research.
Denis Muthike, PhD
Associate Director, Global Engineering RAP. Hydroclimatology.
Karl G. Linden, PhD
Associate Director & Mortenson Professor. WASH Systems.
Rita Klees, PhD
Associate Director, Outreach. Professor of Engineering Practice.
Carlo Salvinelli, PhD
Faculty Fellow. Associate Teaching Professor.
Zia Mehrabi, PhD
Faculty Fellow. Asst. Professor, Environmental Studies.
Grace Burleson, PhD
Faculty Fellow. Asst. Professor, Mechanical Engineering.
Gunārs Platais, PhD
Adjunct Associate Professor.
John Edem Ecklu, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate. Climate finance & water insecurity.
James Harper, PhD
Faculty Fellow. Asst. Professor, Mechanical Engineering.
Styvers Kathuni
Affiliate. PhD Candidate, Civil Engineering.
Lars Schobitz
Faculty Fellow. Data Science Instructor.
Sarah Goodroad
Program Coordinator.
Nancy Wright, MS
Financial Manager.
Chantal Iribagiza, PhD
Research Associate. WASH & clean energy, East Africa.
Arnold Bugingo
Professional Master’s Student. Bridges to Prosperity.
Whitney Knopp, MS, EI
PhD Candidate. Water security, Horn of Africa.
Our Advisory Board
Jenny Frankel-Reed
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Senior program leader in global development, health, and equity.
Mark Mortenson
Mortenson Family
Represents the Mortenson family’s commitment to engineering education.
Boris Martin
CEO, Engineers Without Borders-USA
Community-driven infrastructure in low-income settings.
Amos Winter, PhD
MIT
Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Global Engineering and Research Lab.
Iana Aranda
President, Engineering for Change / ASME
Human-centered engineering for global development.
Avery Bang
Managing Director, Mulago Foundation
High-impact social ventures. Former CEO of Bridges to Prosperity.
Tom Clasen, PhD
Emory University
Gangarosa Professor. WASH and household air pollution. WHO advisor.
Joe Brown, PhD, PE
UNC Chapel Hill
Professor, Environmental Sciences & Engineering. UNC Water Institute.
John Simon (visiting)
Total Impact Capital
Former U.S. Ambassador to the African Union; EVP, OPIC.
Education Programs
Global Engineering RAP
~50 on-campus first-year & returning members + ~50 off-campus each year. Since 2013.
Undergraduate Minors
Global Engineering Minor (~40/year). Plus campus-wide Sustainability Minor with the Center providing the core course.
Online & On-Campus Graduate Certificate
12-credit online or in-person. Students from Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Turkey, Armenia. 9 credits transfer into MS.
Professional MS: Resilience & Sustainability
Climate, geospatial analytics, hazard-resilient infrastructure. With Env. Studies & Leeds School of Business.
Professional MS: Environmental Engineering
Water chemistry, microbiology, WASH, household energy. Alumni across State Dept., USAID, Water for People, B2P.
Scholarships & Support
10–15 graduate and 10–15 undergrad students supported yearly through apprenticeships, scholarships, and fellowships.
The Mortenson Center program has been the highlight of my academic experience. The community is very supportive, the classes prepared me for a career in global development, and the practicum is a unique opportunity.— J. Darby '24
Our Courses
Semester Courses
- CVEN 5919 — Global Development for Engineers
- CVEN 5939 — Global Engineering & Hazard Resilience Practicum
- CVEN 5969 — Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
- CVEN 5909 — Hazards, Resilience & Sustainability
- MCEN 5299 — Household Energy Systems in the Global South
Undergraduate
- GEEN 1400 — First Year Engineering Projects
- EVEN 2909 — Introduction to Global Sustainability
- CVEN 4969 — Water Security, Sanitation & Hygiene
Example Electives
Environmental Impact Assessment • Analytical Methods & Data Analysis • Design Research Theory • AI for Good • International & Comparative Education
Global Engineering Modules
Humanitarian Aid
Intro to Humanitarian Aid • Disaster Risk Reduction • Refugees & Displacement
Principles
Global Health Series • Environmental & Development Economics
Project Management
Program & Project Management • Solution Identification & Proposal Development
Methods
Community Appraisal • Study Design & Impact Evaluation • Data Analytics for Development
Students in the Field
Transformative Student Journeys
Manjeet Pandey
Nepal. First Online Certificate cohort on Mortenson scholarship. MS in Civil Eng. 2024. ASCE Top 10 New Faces of Civil Engineering. Now PM at Mortenson Construction, Denver.
Fatma Köroğlu
Turkey. Full tuition scholarship. Professional MS 2024. Continuing work on the USAID-funded Mortenson Center Armenia Project.
John Edem Ecklu
Ghana. Professional MS → PhD student. Climate financing for water insecurity. 4 years WASH experience at TREND Group.
What I treasure most about the Mortenson Center is the community—both faculty and students foster an environment ripe for meaningful discussions on pressing global issues.— Diego Valdivieso
Food Security
2.3 billion people face food insecurity. 40% of soils are degraded globally.
Food Security Modeling
Data science mapping food production, transport, and consumption networks. FarmGeek platform analyzing agricultural interventions worldwide.
Ceres2030
Evidence-based analysis determining the cost and strategies needed to end hunger by 2030. World Bank World Development Report contributor.
Climate Adaptation Atlas
Mapping climate adaptation for agriculture across E. & S. Africa. Dangerous heat, drought/flood extremes. NASA, USGS, NSF funded.
Water
4.4 billion people have fecal contamination in their drinking water. Water contributes to 10% of global emissions.
Water Security Monitoring
Tryptophan-like fluorescence and ML to detect E. coli in real time. Deployed in 10+ countries.
Water Quality & Climate Finance
Performance-based financing and carbon credit revenue. 10M people drinking clean water, 45M carbon credits issued.
DRIP — Drought Resilience
Satellite-connected borehole monitoring. 276M m³ water pumped, 2M+ runtime hours across Kenya.
Infrastructure
4 billion people face infrastructure isolation. 40% of global emissions come from the built environment.
Impact Evaluation
Trail bridge impact in Rwanda—health, wealth, and education via remote sensing and geospatial analytics.
Hazard-Resilient Infrastructure
Design and assessment for climate resilience, natural hazards, and sustainability in the built environment.
Geospatial Analytics & ML
ML tools for resource identification and management. Workforce maps, development planning, remote sensing.
Student Enrollment & Alumni Outcomes
300+ graduate-level alumni since 2006. 500+ undergraduate alumni since 2013.
Alumni by Program (2020–2025)
Alumni Jobs (2020–2025)
Marketing Strategy
Undergraduate Recruitment
Job Fairs • GEEN 1400 & class presentations • Tabling at special events • Engineering Launch
Graduate Recruitment
Visit Day & Admitted Student Sessions (ME, Biomed, EVEN, CEAE, EnEd) • EWB National & Regional • EIA Matchmaker
Speaking Engagements
UNC Water & Health • EWB SLO & National • IEEE Humanitarian • UC Berkeley • Cornell • CO WASH Symposium • Stockholm World Water Week
Digital & Advertising
Everspring AIO visibility • Joint website redesign (CEAE/EVEN) • $12K ads: Meta, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, Reddit • LinkedIn growth • Newsletters
Partnerships & Sponsorships
EWB conference sponsorship ($15K ’25/’26) • $10K EWB-CU matching support • Bridge Buffs Ambassador program • Buffs All In Campaign
Systems & Outreach
University RFIs — adding Global Engineering to CEAE/EVEN forms • Swag creation for tabling events
Shifting Landscape for Global Engineering Careers
USAID Closure (2025)
83% of USAID programs cut; agency officially closed July 2025. The U.S. funded ~47% of global humanitarian appeals. The Lancet projects 9.4M additional deaths by 2030.
Post-COVID Remote Work Shift
Remote job postings quadrupled (2.5% to 11%). Organizations hire locally rather than relocating international staff.
Broader U.S. Retrenchment
Withdrawal from the WHO and reduced engagement with the UN have contracted the institutional pipeline for international development careers.
Cascading Donor Cuts
Germany, France, Canada, and the UK have compounded cuts. OECD projects a 17% fall in total global aid from 2024.
Decolonization & Localization
Shift toward locally-led development prioritizes local hires over international staff. Essential for equity but reduces traditional expatriate roles.
Emerging Opportunities
Growing demand in climate tech, resilience engineering, carbon markets, and domestic infrastructure offers new pathways.
Impact on Recruitment
These forces reduce career visibility and perceived ROI for prospective graduate students—even as the need for skilled engineers in water, climate, and infrastructure has never been greater. The Center must articulate new value propositions.
Adapting Our Programs for a Shifting Landscape
The core tension: Our distinction has long been an explicit focus on global poverty reduction through engineering, while our students—rightly—expect a degree that leads to viable careers. Pathways that once aligned these two goals are now less reliable.
We seek your input on how the Mortenson Center should adapt to remain distinctive, credible, and attractive to tuition-paying students, while staying true to our mission.
Differentiation & Positioning
Where is the Center’s differentiation strongest? How do we articulate value when traditional career pathways have contracted?
Enrollment & Placement Risks
Where do we face the greatest risks? Are there areas where the gap between student expectations and career reality has grown too wide?
New Directions for Durable Value
What new directions—climate tech, resilience engineering, carbon markets, domestic infrastructure—could create durable value?
Mission & Market Alignment
How do we maintain our commitment to global poverty reduction while ensuring graduates can build viable careers?
Key Themes & Board Advice
Two Strategic Paths (Boris Martin)
1) Stay in institutional development, serving emerging-market professionals in their own contexts. 2) Redefine humanitarian engineering as a cross-cutting set of values applicable across sectors.
Sustainability Transformation (Iana Aranda)
The massive sustainability transformation requires “more equipped engineers everywhere, in every sector.” Private sector companies are executing development-adjacent work. Carbon markets are a strong fit.
Core Skills Are Transferable (Amos Winter)
MIT students go into well-paying jobs in fields different from their grad research. The value: learning to scout good problems, build models using physics and economics, and test prototypes in context.
Keep a Core Skill (Jenny Frankel-Reed)
“If you’re a generalist, you’re not particularly useful.” The market hasn’t disappeared but fragmented. Survey employers, ask what they value, and align the curriculum.
Snapback Will Come (John Simon)
“The fundamental model is quite powerful. I can’t name another program doing this at all.” Unspent Congressional funds ($50B) will force the State Dept. to seek development professionals again.
The Need Is Greater Than Ever (Mark Mortenson)
Displacement from 35M to 200M, climate change accelerating. “This is where you can learn to do a lot of good in this world.” People in investment want to do good but don’t know how.
Six Actions to Secure the Center’s Future
Derived from the March 11, 2026 Advisory Board meeting and supported by independent research. Each action item is backed by data, benchmarked against peer institutions, and designed to be executed within 12–24 months.
Survey Employers & Alumni
The international development job market has fractured—not disappeared. Understanding where demand has shifted is essential to aligning curriculum and placement.
USAID Contractor Collapse
DAI laid off 70% of staff. RTI International cut 35%. Tetra Tech lost $576M in USAID revenue. Chemonics has cut thousands of positions globally.
Domestic WASH Is Growing
$625B in U.S. water infrastructure needs over 20 years (EPA). One-third of the water utility workforce is retiring within a decade. BLS projects 7% growth for environmental engineers through 2033.
Private Sector Hiring
Tetra Tech has 2,325 open positions despite USAID losses—pivoting to domestic resilience, climate adaptation, and DOD contracts. AECOM, Jacobs, and Arcadis are all expanding sustainability practices.
Recommended Actions
1. Survey top 25 employers on skills they value. 2. Alumni outcome survey: career path, salary, skills gaps. 3. Map curriculum to employer demand and identify gaps.
Online Program Revenue Model
Currently free for LMIC students (mission-aligned but not revenue-generating). The online graduate market is $74B and growing 12%+ annually. Proven models exist at every scale.
Georgia Tech OMSCS
16,609 enrolled • $7K total tuition • ~$58M/yr revenue • 13,000+ graduates since 2014. Proved that low-cost, high-volume online master’s can be transformative.
Illinois iMBA (Coursera)
4,898 students • $27K total • ~$50M+/yr gross revenue. 70% Coursera scholarship reduces net/student, but volume compensates. Largest online MBA globally.
Small School Success: Simmons
~1,700 undergrads grew online MSW/MSN revenue from $4M to $80M in 4 years via 2U partnership. Net revenue ~$25M after 66–70% OPM revenue share.
Mortenson Opportunity
Competitive sweet spot: $20–35K for online engineering/sustainability MS. A 200-student cohort at $25K = $5M/yr gross. Purdue targets 600 in 3 programs at $22.5K.
Government-Sponsored Pipelines
Many governments fund employees’ graduate education abroad. Partnering with these programs creates predictable, funded enrollment cohorts aligned with development missions.
IHE Delft Model
23,000+ alumni from 190 countries. Primarily government-sponsored mid-career water professionals. Funded by Dutch development budget + partner government scholarships. The closest analog to what Mortenson could build.
DAAD (Germany)
Funds 67,531 international students/yr with €659M budget. Programs must apply for “Approved Program” status—a clear path for Mortenson to access funded students.
World Bank JJ/WBGSP
44 participating master’s programs worldwide. Covers tuition, living, travel. CU is not currently a partner—application would create a direct pipeline.
Country-Specific Opportunities
Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda actively fund engineers for overseas study. Saudi KASP declined but Gulf states still investing heavily. Target 5–10 partnerships in 2 years.
Cross-Department Expansion
AI disruption is redirecting students from Computer Science to Mechanical Engineering and other applied fields. Cross-listing creates enrollment growth without new program approval.
CS Enrollment Declining
62% of CS departments report declining interest since 2022. National enrollment down 6%. Students citing AI automation concerns are pivoting to hardware and physical-systems engineering.
Mechanical Engineering Surging
ME job demand projected to grow 9% (BLS). Clean energy transition, EV manufacturing, and infrastructure spending driving demand.
Proven Models
MIT D-Lab serves 300 students/yr through cross-listed courses across ME, CEE, and Urban Planning. Stanford’s d.school draws from 7 schools. ABET allows cross-listed courses for accreditation.
Mortenson Path Forward
1. Cross-list 3–5 courses with ME, CEE, and Environmental Engineering. 2. Create a “Global Engineering” certificate. 3. Target: 50+ new enrollments in Year 1.
New Market Geographies
Countries investing heavily in their own development programs represent untapped recruitment markets. These nations are bypassing traditional UN channels and need trained professionals.
UAE & Gulf States
UAE commits $2.2B/yr in ODA ($98B cumulative). Abu Dhabi hosts IRENA HQ. Dubai hosts COP28 legacy programs. Governments fund graduate study for nationals.
India
363,000 Indian students in the U.S. (largest source country). India leads Global South development cooperation with $35B+ in concessional lending.
Africa Partnership Models
Carnegie Mellon Rwanda: $275.7M Mastercard Foundation gift serving 6,300 students. Mortenson can partner with African universities rather than compete.
China: Cautionary Note
Georgia Tech Shenzhen closed due to Entity List restrictions. Student flow declining. Focus recruitment on individual students, not institutional ties.
Engage the Board Actively
First Advisory Board meeting since March 2020. The board’s networks, expertise, and institutional memory are underutilized assets.
Quarterly Check-ins
Move from ad hoc to quarterly cadence. 30-minute virtual updates with a focused question. Keep momentum without over-burdening busy professionals.
Working Groups by Action Item
Assign 2–3 board members to each action item. Jenny Frankel-Reed on employer surveys; Boris Martin on geographies; Amos Winter on cross-department models; Iana Aranda on online programs.
Leverage Board Networks
Board members have direct connections to USAID, World Bank, Tetra Tech, MIT, and the Mortenson Family Foundation. Each member commits to 2–3 introductions per quarter.
Progress Dashboard
Share a live dashboard tracking all 6 action items. Metrics: employers surveyed, online revenue pipeline, scholarship partnerships, cross-listed courses, international applicants by region.
Solutions for the Real World
From the Engineering for Developing Communities program to a global center impacting millions, the Mortenson Center continues to grow its reach in education, research, and practice.