D22 – Increasing Awareness of Water Treatment Careers

Overall Project Description:

Water treatment operators ensure the quality of public drinking water and protect the environment by cleaning wastewater. The United States is currently facing a shortage of water treatment operators. Moreover, ⅓ of current operators are eligible for retirement within the next 10 years. Facing such a serious shortage puts both public health and the environment at risk. For our project, we worked with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to identify the causes of the operator shortage and develop recommendations to increase awareness and recruitment for the water treatment field. To achieve this goal, we conducted 18 interviews with municipal officials and private corporations and collected 206 survey responses from vocational high school and community college students.

Project Goal and Objectives:

6 – Clean Water and Sanitation

Student Team and Advisors:

Wu, Yiyang
Wong, Matthew
Nguyen, Thuyen

Our project is being advised by Corey Dehner.

Project Sponsors:

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

Expected Project Deliverables:

Water Treatment Careers IQP- Report

WPI Project Center: Massachusetts