French Student Works with Engineering Professor on Carbon Footprint Research
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – DECEMBER 18, 2012 – A French engineering student spent the fall semester at The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College conducting research on carbon footprints.
Anne Sophie Baudry
“I like to work on renewable energy,” said Anne-Sophie Baudry, 21, a fourth-year engineering student at L’Ecole d’Ingenieurs en Genie des Systemes Industriels in La Rochelle, France and a resident of Tours, France. She is scheduled to graduate in 2014.
“I like doing research because we don’t do that much in France. We have more technical projects,” said Baudry.
Baudry worked from late August to early December doing research on the Internet and reading journals, articles, carbon footprint plans and thesis projects to study how to improve the methods used in the quantification and analysis of carbon footprints at the universities.
During her work she found there were problems with how greenhouse gases and emissions sources were selected, data gathering and the difficulty of comparing and contrasting carbon footprints between universities because of different measuring methods used.
“I thought that each university which is interested in doing its carbon footprint could create a new page on its website to use as a database for the data gathering, especially when you know how difficult it is to collect the data,” said Baudry. “I believe that it is also essential to adapt the emission sources to each university. We should count all the greenhouse gases – water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and others – and the carbon dioxide absorption sources if possible.”
Baudry worked with Dr. Immanuel Edinbarough, Professor and Associate Dean of the university’s College of Science, Mathematics and Technology and Director of the Office of Engineering Technology.
“She’s a role model student,” he said. “She has a project and she works very hard. She doesn’t need the guidance. She identifies the problems and has her own solutions.”
Baudry took part in activities away from her studies.
She traveled with some of the university’s other international students to visit San Antonio and took part in International Education Week. She also visited South Padre Island.
Baudry ate Tex-Mex cuisine for the first time but said the food was a little spicy for her taste buds. She often cooked French cuisine with other international students while living at Casa Bella, the university’s residential housing.
Baudry is the third student from the French university to spend a semester abroad at UTB and TSC. Last fall, the Office of Engineering Technology hosted two French students who did renewable energy projects. The French university requires its students to do one semester of study internationally.
It is a partnership that Edinbarough hopes can continue in the future.
“We want to put our own students over there,” he said. “Maybe I would like to go teach there for a summer and collaborate with faculty members on research.”