West Indies Scientists are Working with USD Researchers to Develop Renewable Energy From Waste Products in San Diego

West Indies Scientists are Working with USD Researchers to Develop Renewable Energy From Waste Products in San Diego

Shamika Spencer and Odesma DalrympleDr. Odesma Dalrymple and Shamika Spencer

Renewable Energy Lecturer Legena Henry, PhD, along with environmental studies PhD student Shamika Spencer from the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados, are collaborating with the Department of Environmental and Ocean Sciences and the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering at the University of San Diego. Together, they are developing a renewable energy source from local waste products.

USD is hosting Shamika Spencer, an Engineering Exchange for Social Justice visiting scholar, to do this research on campus. The USD cross-campus project includes faculty members from the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, Associate Professor Odesma Dalrymple, PhD and Assistant Professor Marissa Forbes, PhD – and from the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Environmental and Ocean Sciences, Professor Drew Talley, PhD

“Shamika's presence here at USD forges and strengthens collaborations across campus and internationally, helps us to investigate technological solutions to urgent climate crises and provides our undergrads with a wonderful near-peer mentor and role model,” says Dr. Dalrymple.

Dr. Henry is the founder of Rum and Sargassum Inc., a start-up created as a result of her research in the Renewable Energy Development Laboratory at UWI on developing a renewable Bio-CNG (a fossil-fuel alternative) made from locally sourced waste products including rum distillery wastewater, sheep manure and seaweed. Dr. Henry and Spencer are spearheading these efforts to develop a viable, environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline.

USD faculty and students are facilitating the project to explore the outcomes of replicating Dr. Henry’s process using waste products sourced from San Diego, including beer wastewater and kelp. Spencer is working with USD students in the lab to begin experiments that will adapt the Rum and Sargassum Inc. methods in San Diego. As the US institutional partner with Rum and Sargassum Inc., USD’s cross-campus collaboration is working towards pursuing a National Science Foundation grant to fund their efforts and continue this research. 

Dr. Dalrymple currently serves as the faculty lead of the Engineering Exchange for Social Justice, which supports USD faculty members across the campus, along with students and external volunteers, in working collaboratively with diverse community groups, who do not normally have access to technical know-how, to co-define and co-create alternative solutions to socio-technical problems. Drs. Dalrymple, Forbes, and Talley are the co-creators and co-leaders of the Water Justice Exchange, a cross-campus, inter-community initiative fostering synergistic research, teaching and solutions for water challenges in the San Diego/Tijuana region, which is helping support this effort.

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