ND Environmental Engineering graduate student Maria Krug was selected for a 2017 Kaneb Graduate Student Teaching award for her work in teaching the undergraduate Community-Based Engineering Design Projects course. Through this interdisciplinary course, which uses a design thinking methodology to identify issues in South Bend, a group of five undergraduate students from different engineering disciplines are partnering with Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2), a collaboration among Notre Dame, IUSB, Ivy Tech, and other area educational institutions that pilots community engaged, sustainable projects to address real world challenges. One of BCe2's key projects is piloting types of green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, in South Bend, to research their effectiveness as a sustainable stormwater management solution to reducing combined sewer overflow. Through their project this semester, students in the class have interviewed key stakeholders to understand the bigger issues around green infrastructure implementation in order to make recommendations to BCe2. Students are now prototyping different ideas that could increase the effectiveness of green infrastructure or provide new, innovative methods to address different aspects of combined sewer overflow. Maria is teaching the course in collaboration with ’81 ND alum Don Ginocchio of SAP, Dustin Mix of the Notre Dame ESTEEM program, Danielle Wood of the Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns, and Jay Brockman of the Notre Dame College of Engineering. Maria’s graduate research with Dr. Alan Hamlet, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, also focuses on the monitoring and modeling of green infrastructure in South Bend through collaboration with BCe2. For more information on the Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem, check out their website here. Congratulations, Maria!