Jeannette Laramee

Jeannette is currently a PhD Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. She is a registered Professional Engineer with ten years of work and research experience designing, building and analyzing civil infrastructure in the United States, Zambia and Tanzania. Jeannette's current research at Stanford University investigates the lifecycle resource use, carbon impacts and financial costs of decentralized sanitation systems with integrated energy and water resource recovery in Zambia and India. Her past research includes assessing the wastewater treatment and energy performance of community-scale biogas digesters in peri-urban Zambia and investigating the environmental and economic impacts of household biogas systems in rural communities in northern Tanzania. Between her M.Eng. and Ph.D. at Stanford, Jeannette worked as a Programme Coordinator with the Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association (BORDA) in Zambia where she designed, implemented and monitored several decentralized biogas digester and wastewater treatment systems in low-income urban communities. Jeannette continues to collaborate with BORDA as a Research Associate during her PhD studies. Prior to beginning her M.Eng. at Stanford University, Jeannette spent three years in Zambia as a Project Manager with the Pestalozzi Zambia Children’s Trust through Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO), where she was responsible for overseeing and coordinating the design, site development and construction of a boarding school for 250 disadvantaged students. She incorporated several environmentally innovative technologies into the design of the center, such as energy efficient rocket stoves and a decentralized wastewater treatment system, which continues to enable the center to collect biogas for cooking fuel and effectively treated all wastewater generated by the center to reuse for agriculture. Jeannette also has four years of experience as a structural engineer consultant with Robert Silman Associates in Washington, DC, a design firm with a dedicated history of sustainable building projects. She has a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University.