Civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Eleftheria Kontou recently spent three days in Kigali, Rwanda as part the 2025 U.S.-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, Medicine Symposium. A signature program of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, the symposium brought together exceptional early-career researchers from the United States and Africa for three days of presentations on five select themes: new solutions for decarbonization, biotechnology, precision agriculture, advances in space research, and smart & connected cities.
This year’s event marked the third U.S.-Africa Frontiers Symposium, the first of which took place in 2022. The program serves to enhance the scientific dialogue among young researchers in Africa and the United States and encourage collaboration between attendees.
“It is an honor to be selected as a participant in such an important engineering exchange event by the National Academies,” Kontou said of her experience. “I was very excited to visit Kigali, Rwanda, meet with all the African and U.S. researchers, and hear about their innovations in the domains of decarbonization and smart and connected cities.”
As an invited researcher, Kontou delivered a presentation of her research, “Meeting Transportation Decarbonization Targets: Optimizing Infrastructure Investments and Policy”. Her research group in the department of civil and environmental engineering mathematically models transportation electrification and charging infrastructure development, guiding policy measures to expedite decarbonization and capture interdependencies with the electricity grid. Kontou shared about the group’s current projects and additionally gave insight into her overall goals to advance systems engineering knowledge and lead the way for more sustainable transportation networks.
From her experience presenting and participating in other sessions, Kontou said her greatest takeaway was a renewed view on the importance of international collaboration. The exchange of ideas that took place showed how global connections can serve as a catalyst for innovation in science and engineering, and bolster creativity toward seeking solutions for the world’s most complex challenges. Though the researchers present may not have found all the answers during their three days in Rwanda, Kontou sees the relationships built at events like the U.S.- Africa Frontiers Symposium as a great place to start.
“We can amplify the impact and applicability of our research when we incorporate multi-disciplinary perspectives and learn from international contexts,” Kontou said. “We need to effectively communicate our research across fields so that we can establish fruitful collaborations and highlight the broader impacts of our work to society!”