Training tomorrow's water resources engineers to design within complex social-ecological aquatic systems

PhD Candidate, Water Resources Engineering

University of Guelph

Water resources engineering is an increasingly important, interdisciplinary, and exciting field that focuses on how humans live with and around water. Traditionally this involved building dams to store water, draining wetlands to build homes and grow crops, constraining rivers to manage flooding and erosion, and creating systems of canals and channels to move water around as we see fit. With human needs top of mind, we transformed resilient, adaptive, and dynamic aquatic systems into highly engineered, controlled, and simplified hydraulic networks. Aquatic environments, however, are exceedingly complex social-ecological systems. While humans have tried to control, manage, and govern water resources, our actions have had numerous unintended consequences. Samantha Mehltretter thinks that how we ‘engineer’ aquatic systems needs to change, and this starts with training tomorrow’s water resources engineers to understand not only the technical foundations of the field, but also the potential social and environmental implications of engineering. Her seminar will start with her doctoral research, where Samantha worked with Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation to address wild rice decline associated with hydroelectric development on the Winnipeg River. Then she’ll provide a brief outline of her teaching philosophy, which is based in constructivism and engaging students by bringing real-world problems into the classroom. Finally, her teaching demonstration will include a brief lecture in coastal engineering about managing flooding and shoreline erosion on the Great Lakes.

Samantha Mehltretter completed her bachelor’s in water resources engineering at the University of Guelph in 2015, and subsequently worked in coastal engineering at Baird & Associates for two years before pursuing graduate research. Samantha’s master’s degree focused on engineering education, investigating how active learning strategies can improve deep learning and student professional skills. Her doctoral studies investigated Manomin (wild rice) decline on the Winnipeg River in partnership with Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation. Samantha is currently working in stream restoration in southern Ontario as she wraps up her PhD. She dreams of becoming an engineering educator so she can share her passion for understanding and improving how we engineer within complex social-ecological aquatic systems.