Voices from the field:

 Peace Corps Master's International students tell their stories

Courtesy of Julie Herrick

“I like the program because it has allowed me to spend two years in the field, gaining experience within both the scientific and social aspects of volcanic hazard mitigation,” says Jemile Erdem, a Peace Corps Master’s International student soon to finish her service in Guatemala. To others considering this program, she offers, “I would recommend this program to students who have an interest in creating bridges between the scientific community and the public, and who have the ability to work independently on their master’s research.” Lara Kapelanczyk, another Peace Corps Master’s International student, adds, “and also who aren’t afraid to take really cold bucket baths on a regular basis!”

During John Lyons’ service in Guatemala, he lived at the volcano observatory on Fuego, one of Central America’s most active volcanoes whose most recent ongoing eruptive phase began in 2002.

Courtesy of John Lyons

He worked closely with volcan­ologists at the Guatemalan National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology, and focused on characterizing Fuego’s different styles of eruptive behavior.

During the entirety of his Peace Corps service, Lyons' (at left, kneeling) goal was to build a catalog of eruptive activity from almost daily observations and records of the resident volcano observers and other volunteers living near the volcano. He also led two month-long field campaigns to record various stages of the ongoing activity with a high-resolution seismo-acoustic network.

Now back on the Michigan Tech campus to finish his master’s and start a doctoral degree, Lyons is using his catalog and geophysical data to decipher the critical signals produced by the volcano during an eruption. Using those data, he will then model the system to determine the best way to monitor future activity. His 27 months in Guatemala were essential to integrating his findings with the monitoring methods used by Guatemalan scientists. He is using data he collected while in Peace Corps service and from subsequent field campaigns in his doctoral dissertation research.

Courtesy of York Lewis

York Lewis worked in El Salvador for nearly three years, extending his Peace Corps service beyond the standard period to collect more data for his master’s research at Michigan Tech. He partnered with the Salvadoran National Service of Earth Studies (SNET), where he learned that they felt they did not understand enough about landslides that had occurred in the Central American Highlands over the past 50 years. They feared more landslides could occur in that region, caused by heavy rainfall and earthquakes, putting the area’s population and infrastructure in jeopardy. So he undertook a study to determine the environmental factors that have led to slope failure in the region.

Identification of these characteristics improves geologists’ ability to make accurate landslide risk assessments, which in turn enhances government efforts to develop successful hazard prevention programs. Extensive fieldwork, always accompanied by colleagues from SNET, enabled Lewis to map several recent landslides, measure bedrock fracture patterns and sample the soils for geotechnical analysis. Lewis recently graduated from the Michigan Tech Peace Corps Master’s International program, and a translated copy of his work will be presented to the Salvadoran institution.

Photo by N. Roots

Essa Gross (at left, kneeling) developed her Peace Corps Master’s International research project after working alongside agricultural extension technicians in Juigalpa, Nicaragua.

As part of a national directive to complete watershed protection plans, the local technicians were tasked with completing a water resource inventory in a nearby watershed with the aid of the Dutch nongovernmental organization SNV. Surface water was relatively scarce and flow could easily be measured by volumetric analysis.

Information on groundwater, however, remained elusive because no economically viable method existed to perform regional-scale productivity measurements in wells. Over the course of a year, Gross developed and tested a new method in several wells and determined the impact of naturally occurring seasonal water table fluctuations on well productivity.

Dissemination of the pumping test method to other technicians across the country has proven to be one of the most challenging aspects of the work. Recent changes in the government and subsequent personnel changes in federally funded institutions have meant that many of Gross’ counterparts have had to find work elsewhere. More often than not in many of the developing countries in which Peace Corps volunteers work, whenever an election places a new party in office, an overhaul of all governmental personnel occurs. For unrelated reasons, SNV decided to focus on other sectors and discontinued funding water development programs. Despite these disappointments, Gross submitted her findings to a journal specializing in developing-world water and sanitation technologies and policy, and plans to develop a field manual.