They
say
a
scholarship
can
take
you
places.
For
Catherine
Denis,
a
scholarship
took
her
to
another
continent.
Winning
the
inaugural
Engineers
Without
Borders
scholarship
sponsored
by
the
Professional
Engineers
of
Ontario
allowed
Catherine
to
spend
the
summer
of
2006
in
Mali
on
an
EWB
internship.
Catherine
worked
with
the
Micronutrient
Initiative,
testing
different
ways
of
fortifying
flour
with
a
vitamin
and
mineral
powder
to
identify
which
one
would
work
best
in
Mali.
She
lent
a
hand
with
the
data
collection
on
the
ground
and
took
her
role
a
step
further,
analyzing
the
entire
system
at
a
higher
level. Catherine’s
observations
led
her
to
recommend
to
her
partner
organization
that
a
uniform
protocol
might
not
fit
the
whole
of
a
large,
diverse
country.
“It’s
a
very
‘systems’
approach,”
she
says.
“We’re
trained
to
step
back,
think
critically
and
raise
questions.”
After
returning
to
Waterloo,
Catherine
became
a
leader
in
the
campus
chapter
of
Engineers
Without
Borders
and
started
raising
money
to
give
future
students
opportunities
like
the
one
she
had
in
Mali.
“You come back so passionate, it’s contagious!”