Engineers Without Borders Mentors Receive Outstanding Alumni Society Award

August 25, 2026

Engineers Without Borders USA is an organization that builds a better world through engineering projects that empower communities to meet their basic human needs and equip leaders to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. The University of Minnesota’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB-UMN) upholds this goal by partnering with communities locally and internationally to assess and address community-identified unmet needs. 

Mentors with the EWB-UMN chapter, many of whom are UMN alumni themselves, have been selected as recipients of the 2026 Outstanding Alumni Society Award sponsored by the University of Minnesota Alumni Association and the College of Science and Engineering. The mentors were nominated by the EWB-UMN students and selected for their guidance in applying science and technology to real-world challenges, collaboration across disciplines and cultures, and using knowledge to improve the lives of others.

One of these EWB-UMN mentors is Chris Ellis, a former senior research associate with the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory’s Applied Research Group. Shortly after his retirement in 2017, Chris began mentoring EWB-UMN’s Guatemala Program students and those with the East Africa Program soon after that. Chris has helped students with drinking water system modelling, design, and implementation, teaching the fundamentals of fluid mechanics as well as the basics of plumbing practices, and traveling with the students during system installations. The EWB-UMN projects with which he has been involved have brought clean, locally available drinking water and sanitation to many thousands of people, mostly children, many for the first time in their lives.

This award will be celebrated during the University of Minnesota’s Homecoming Week in October.