Small world

My last few days have been spent coming and going from a conference that is in town regarding efficient stove design for the developing world and methods of reducing indoor air pollution (one of the world’s leading causes of deaths - WHO info). There were some people at the conference who were big into biochar and it was a good opportunity for networking (not to mention that it was also held at probably the nicest resort in the entire country).

Many of the people in the office where I’ve been working/studying also attended the conference. One of which (Dr. Da Silva – the coordinator for the renewable energy master’s program), was able to line up one of the conference attendees to come and speak to all of the renewable energy students about appropriate stove design (sounds like a pretty boring topic, but actually very interesting…at least for me).

The presentation was this morning, and before arriving all I knew was the presenter's topic and that she was from the States. We arrived on campus at the same time and struck up a conversation. She was originally from Minnesota, her name was Nordica (a Minnesotan name if I’ve ever heard one…), and she was now based in Oregon with her company. When I mentioned I was from Iowa, she included that she had gone to school there. As it turned out, not only was she an Iowa Stater, but she also had graduated in mechanical engineering! She just had about 8 years on me, but we were still able to share some stories about professors and classes back in Ames.

I have been hoping that one of these days I’ll see some random person wearing an Iowa State shirt (old shirts from the US are shipped over here in bulk and then sold cheaply in the markets here…you see all sorts of random shirts that one wouldn’t expect to find in the middle of Africa). Beyond the people working with CSRL, I never thought I’d run into an actual alum over here, let alone one from the same department. Guess it really is a small world!

Cheers!
Chris


Nordica (second from the right) being introduced by Dr. Da Silva (far right) before her presentation to the renewable energy students in our classroom