Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

6 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2013 PA R K B L O C K S Stories of women leaders THEY STARTED their political careers as activists and volunteers for their neighborhoods, their children’s schools, and for community issues that mattered to them. Today Eleanor Davis, Avel Gordly, Gretchen Kafoury, Vera Katz, Barbara Roberts, and Betty Roberts are recognized civic and political leaders for all Oregonians. The six women donated their papers to the PSU Library Special Collections, which makes them available to the public (the Katz Papers are still being cataloged). From Avel Gordly’s efforts to remove racist language from the Oregon constitution to Barbara Roberts (seen here) becoming the first woman governor in the state, the papers show how these women shaped Oregon and the region. Phoning a cookstove in Kenya WHAT’S THE POINT in bringing water filters, clean-burning stoves, and sanitation facilities to the world’s poor if they are not being used? None at all. That’s why SWEETsense, a monitoring sensor that uses cell phone networks to transmit information from devices and facilities in Rwanda, Kenya, Indonesia, and Haiti to Portland State laboratories is so important. Engineering professor Evan Thomas (pictured here) and his students have created a new level of accountability for international relief efforts. It’s also led to a new way to track air and water quality in the U.S. The work is part of Thomas’s SWEETLab— Sustainable Water, Energy, and Environmental Technologies—where engineers design gravity water filters, compact clean-burning stoves, and other items for people in developing countries.