Ilse Ruiz-Mercado Wins First Prize in Poster Competition

Featured Faculty: Joan Walker

Ilse Ruiz-Mercado, Ph.D. candidate in Civil Systems, won the first prize in the student poster competition at the 2010 Joint Conference of the International Societies of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. See poster below.

Her work quantifying the population patterns of kitchen time-activity using ultrasonic sensors in rural Guatemalan households received the $500 award for its innovation and methodology. The exposure to indoor air pollution from cooking fires causes 1.6 million premature deaths annually. Understanding the dynamics of time-activity and stove use is critical to assess the impacts of programs that provide efficient stoves.

Congratulations, Ilse!

She is working with CEE Professor Joan Walker and Professor Kirk Smith in the School of Public Health to model the dynamics of technology adoption and stove use in rural Guatemala and Mexico, where she implemented the Stove Use Monitors (SUMs) to track stove activity.

Published