ARLINGTON, Va. – Though not as high profile as some of the national and international scientific and engineering associations based in Washington, D.C., the International Ultraviolet Association aims to build a critical environmental discipline while shining a bright light on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines and careers.
Since Sunday, the IUVA has been holding a conference in Arlington, Va., titled “Moving Forward: Sustainable UV Solutions to Meet Evolving Regulatory Challenges,” to bring its practitioners together and to consider the public policy challenges. Although the conference schedule has been filled with technical presentations, the significance of the conference goes beyond learning about technological developments.
“This program that we’re hosting today is a clear development of what we’re trying to do. Our mission is to create not just visibility within the discipline, but to bring in the everyday person that might not understand UV technology and to educate the population of students who are unaware of this particular discipline within the engineering community,” said IUVA Executive Director Deborah Martinez.
Ultraviolet light has a number of applications, but is primarily used to disinfect water, wastewater and air. The technology can be scaled to create anything from personal, travel-sized water filters to systems that purify water for an entire city.
Paul Swaim, the president of IUVA, stated “it’s effective and it’s chemical free. For a long time we’ve relied on chemicals to do that work, or we’ve simply not disinfected, but that’s not as effective as UV light.”
Swaim cited an outbreak of the Cryptosporidium pathogen in 1993. This pathogen, which is easily inactivated by UV light treatment, contaminated the water at a Milwaukee area water purification plant. Over a two-week period, the pathogen infected about 403,000 of the 1.61 million residents and killed more than 100. According to Swaim, “UV technology makes the world a safer place.”
Despite the importance of UV technology, it is still relatively unknown compared to other engineering subfields. This awareness problem is compounded by a low rate of students pursuing STEM careers in general. This is a problem IUVA Executive Director Martinez is attempting to tackle.
