Fulbright award sends PhD student to Switzerland

Rebecca Alcock, a PhD student in industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has received a Fulbright/Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship to spend 10 months in Switzerland conducting research.

Alcock (BSBME ’18, MSBME ’20) will work with researchers at the Swiss university ETH Zürich to improve a technical toolkit she’s developed to help healthcare facilities in under-resourced settings integrate solar power. Alcock, who focuses on clinics that lack access to electricity, has previously traveled to rural Colombia to test her toolkit.

Her toolkit includes analytical tools to estimate a clinic’s electrical demands, inform the size of its energy system, and simulate future performance under conditions created by climate change.

“Beyond ETH Zürich, conducting this research in Switzerland, the sustainable development capital and global leader in public health and technological innovation, will unlock access to preeminent climate-health experts and opportunities for researcher-practitioner partnerships that I would not have anywhere else in the world,” Alcock wrote in her application materials.

Earlier in 2024, Alcock spent four-and-a-half months at ETH Zürich through a fellowship with the National Centre of Competence in Research, a Swiss scientific agency. She plans to further develop her toolkit, package it for online open-source publication, and explore new collaborations in Kenya and Malawi.

Photo caption: Rebecca Alcock and her dog, Willow, in Lucerne, Switzerland. Submitted photo.