![\"<p>Ethan](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ButlerEthan2_lg.jpg\" "\\"Ethan")
<\/a>In his application, Ethan<\/strong> Butler<\/strong> said he hopes for a career in which he can apply his knowledge of chemical engineering, leadership skills, and commitment to social and environmental justice to resolve the water and energy crises. \u201cI hope to found an organization dedicated to the development and implementation of sustainable, community-based technological solutions and complementary social programs that provide clean water and renewable energy where it is needed most,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He is also considering the possibility of first joining the Peace Corps or Teach for America, so he can gain first-hand experience in organizing and motivating people, and learn more about underserved communities and how to foster team-based solutions.<\/p>\n Butler\u2019s environmental awareness began in his early years. His family, whose livelihood depended on dairy and tree farming, impressed upon him the need for thoughtful land stewardship. \u201cI fell in love with the land I grew up on,\u201d he says. When a family member fell ill, some of the land was sold to cover medical expenses. The experience made a deep impression on him.<\/p>\n Butler enrolled in UConn\u2019s School of Engineering in 2008. He became aware of the powerful convergence of engineering, environmental conservation, and social justice through his involvement with the UConn chapter<\/a> of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).<\/p>\n \u201cWithin EWB,\u201d he says, \u201cI learned about \u2018appropriate technologies,\u2019 that is, technologies that consider the cultural, economic, political, social and other contexts of the people they are meant to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n He was elected vice president of the chapter as a freshman, and has served two terms as president. Under his leadership, the chapter flourished, and it now has more than 50 active student members, more than $40,000 in donations, and two core projects in Nicaragua<\/a> and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n An important mentor is Mekonnen Gebremichael, associate professor of civil & environmental engineering, who advises UConn\u2019s EWB chapter and has conducted water research in Ethiopia for years, including participating in a multidisciplinary multi-national USAID-HED-funded project<\/a> aimed at helping Ethiopia attain water security.<\/p>\n \u201cI began to see that water is fundamental,\u201d says Butler. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of survival. According to the World Health Organization, of Ethiopia\u2019s 81 million residents, 62 percent lack access to clean water, and 88 percent have no access to so-called \u2018improved sanitation.\u2019 … I began to see that problems such as access to clean water \u2013 so simple to solve from a technical standpoint \u2013 are extremely complex within their larger social, political, and cultural contexts, and using appropriate technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n The water crisis in Ethiopia is at the heart of his University Scholar research<\/a> underway in the laboratory of Jeffrey McCutcheon, assistant professor of chemical engineering, who is his primary advisor. His research focuses on developing a superior water filtration process to eliminate a menu of toxic contaminants commonly found at excessive levels in Ethiopia\u2019s water, including arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, and other metals left over from manufacturing or from the soil itself. The filtration system he envisions will be mobile, easily maintained by community members, made from materials readily available even in rural areas, and require no electricity to operate.<\/p>\n In addition to the EWB chapter, Butler has been a member of EcoHuskies, ConnPIRG\u2019s Campus Climate Challenge, and the EcoGarden Club. He is an undergraduate representative on the Environmental Policy Advisory Committee, and recently joined ECOalition to develop a faculty lecture series in hopes of nurturing student interest in research-based outreach. He was named one of 29 University Scholars this year, and was selected for the competitive Legacy Leadership Experience<\/a> at UConn, and also recently received a Portz Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship<\/a> from the National Collegiate Honors Council to support his University Scholar research on developing appropriate water treatment technologies for the developing world.<\/p>\n A visit to Costa Rica as a 16-year-old high school student was a turning point for Katherine Tsantiris<\/strong>, when she had to hike for more than an hour into a conservation area to work on a project saving turtles. The site was remote. There was no electricity, no houses, no boats, no cars.<\/p>\n Yet the trappings of civilization \u2013 including a car tire \u2013 were all too evident. \u201cWhen I walked outside, my jaw dropped,” says Tsantiris. “The beach was covered in trash. It was at that moment I realized that no matter how far from civilization a place seems, the effects of human degradation still manage to reach it.<\/p>\n \u201cI walked down the beach with a new commitment to the environment,\u201d she adds. \u201cI realized that while people are destroying it, only people can save it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tsantiris is not only a winner of the highly competitive Udall scholarship, she is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a New England Scholar, and the winner of a four-year academic excellence scholarship.<\/p>\n A junior majoring in environmental science with a dual concentration in marine science and resource economics, Tsantiris hopes one day to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, using science to influence public policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe health of marine mammals is a lens through which we can survey the health of marine ecosystems and measure some of the most significant environmental issues we face today, from chemical pollutants in our waters to climate change,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Tsantiris, who grew up in West Hartford, has spent summers in Greece, where her father Leonidas (the head coach of UConn women\u2019s soccer) grew up on the remote fishing island of Icaria. Environmental degradation there is rampant and Tsantiris, a scuba diver, is working to spread environmental stewardship on the island.<\/p>\n Last summer, she contacted the Archipelagos Institute for Marine and Environmental Research on a nearby island, and is now working with it to draft a report about the degradation on Icaria. She has also done summer research on marine mammals on a nearby Greek island for the Tethys Research Institute, and spent a summer at the University of Michigan doing basic research in molecular and cell biology.<\/p>\n Tsantiris has also been active on campus as a member of the EcoHusky group<\/a> and an intern in the Environmental Policy office<\/a>. There she has worked to get sneakers recycled, been involved with a number of initiatives to improve environmental policy on campus, and spearheaded an effort to get people who attend UConn\u2019s basketball and football games to recycle.<\/p>\n \u201cKathy is passionate about the environment,\u201d says Rich Miller, director of environmental policy. \u201cShe\u2019s also a great communicator. She is well-informed about environmental policy issues and the underlying science, so I often ask her to draft everything from environmental outreach materials to grant applications and donor solicitations for UConn\u2019s Campus Sustainability Fund<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Tsantiris says the environmental projects she has been involved with have taught her that public policy is just as important as knowing the science of the environment.<\/p>\n \u201cReversing environmental decline requires effort from all sectors of society,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is the complexity and the urgency that motivate me. Environmental science is not a field of its own; it is the meeting point of every field. It is anthropology, sociology, and political science; it is biology, marine science, and chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n Her favorite course at the University so far has been \u201cThe Politics of Oil.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUConn is a really great school,\u201d she says, \u201cwith a lot of great professors and a lot of great opportunities. UConn is giving me an amazing education.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A passion for the environment earned Ethan Butler and Katherine Tsantiris national scholarships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-33171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 21:37:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33171"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37429,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33171\/revisions\/37429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33171"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=33171"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>