In the wake of a hurricane or storm, engineering professor Tracy Kijewski-Correa is often running towards the destruction. She's called in to assess damage to buildings and to see which structures weathered the storm well. The reconnaissance allows her to makes suggestions to building codes and regulations to improve resilience.But she also wants to help communities prepare for storms before they happen, so she, along with a team of colleagues, developed NJcoast. The website allows first responders, emergency managers, and municipal planners to have access to accurate storm hazard projections before the storm hits so they can make informed disaster preparedness decisions. NJcoast has completed pilot testing and is now available across the state of New Jersey, where it will make coastal communities more resilient to storms.Learn more about how Professor Kijewski-Correa is fighting to protect our communities: https://ntrda.me/ProtectOurCommunity
More from What Would You Fight For?
- 2:01Fighting for Intelligent Solutions that Save Lives
- 2:01Fighting to Grow the Good in BusinessVictoria Nyanjura ’20 MGA survived a harrowing capture by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Her story of sorrow and distress eventually brought her to hope. That hope came from education, and she’s committed to providing it to other women at Saint Bakhita’s Vocational School where she is now the head of school.Saint Bakhita’s opened to serve LRA kidnapping survivors like Victoria, but for many years, the school teetered on the brink of closure. Then Notre Dame Professor Wendy Angst stepped in to help. She and the students in her Innovation and Design Thinking class in the Mendoza College of Business are working alongside the students at Saint Bakhita’s to develop creative ways for the school to become self-sufficient and profitable.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/FightingtoGrowGoodinBusiness
- 2:01Fighting to End CorruptionWhen undergraduate students decide to study in Notre Dame’s Washington Program, they often hope for exposure to politics and policy, for an internship at the Capitol, for an urban living experience. But for Greg Miller ’22 and his classmates, their time and work in D.C. brought them to the very thick of U.S. State Department decisions against corrupt Maltese officials.Greg took Professor Tom Kellenberg’s class on the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and learned how to assemble formal dossiers on corrupt government officials. The students were so inspired by the work that they returned to campus and created the Student Policy Network, a club dedicated to public policy projects, like the one they completed under the Magnitsky Act. The club members created a dossier on Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the former Angolan prime minister, and Africa’s richest woman. She is accused of siphoning public funds to build her personal wealth to $3.5 billion while the average person in her country lives on less than $2 per day. Shortly after the students’ dossier was submitted to the State Department, dos Santos was officially sanctioned by the U.S. government.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/FightingtoEndCorruption
- 2:01Fighting for Water SustainabilityJ.P LaBrucherie’s family has farmed in southern California for generations, but he’s uncertain about their future there. After years of drought, the 2002 law graduate is struggling to get enough water for his crops, which supply our supermarkets, our favorite restaurants, and our plates.But two Notre Dame professors believe they have an innovative solution for the global issue of water scarcity. Tengfei Luo, an engineer, and Brandon Ashfeld, a chemist, have worked together to create technology that can desalinate seawater or purify unclean water. Importantly, their method is more energy- and cost-effective than existing options. That potential offers hope to folks like J.P., and all of us who rely on clean water to eat, drink, bathe and more.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/96cb64
- 2:01Fighting for Renewable EnergyIn 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico, causing widespread destruction. For six months, Notre Dame student Lucas Barreto's family went without power on an island totally dependent on traditional energy infrastructure.The experience solidified his desire to study engineering and help his home someday become energy stable. This spring, he returned home with a group of undergraduates and the ND Energy team to better understand the complex energy situation in Puerto Rico.Plans for renewable energy are still years away, but the group took early steps by installing solar panels for some of the residents most in need.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/FightingForRenewableEnergy
- 2:01Fighting to Educate a Different Kind of LawyerSince 2008, the Notre Dame Law School has sent students to eastern Kentucky, one of the poorest regions in the country. The students offer pro bono legal services to those who could not afford them otherwise.In recent years, they’ve worked with hundreds of disabled residents who are victims of Eric Conn, a lawyer who committed the largest Social Security fraud in U.S. history. You may have seen the docu-series about him on Apple TV+. Many of the victims have lost their only source of income and are struggling to make ends meet.But this is more than a service trip. It’s an academic course in the school’s curriculum that shapes the way these students perceive and practice law. And it’s one of several experiential learning opportunities with similar, practical objectives.See how Notre Dame is educating a different kind of lawyer: https://go.nd.edu/EducateADifferentKindofLawyer
