Virginia Tech students' water-sampling drone innovation takes them to Malawi and Rome

When three Virginia Tech students from different disciplines joined forces to advance a drone-based water sampling project in Malawi, none imagined their work would lead them to present at the World Food Forum, Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations in Rome. 

Yet their innovative approach to monitoring schistosomiasis, a devastating parasitic disease, earned them selection as finalists from over 1,000 global submissions in the 2024 Transformative Research Challenge.

Safety is paramount when testing for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that can pierce human skin on contact. Traditional sampling methods require workers to wade into potentially contaminated waters, especially in reed-filled areas where parasite-carrying snails thrive.

"The parasites develop in the snail population," said Yuba Gautam, associate professor of public health at the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. "If humans go without protection, they can contract the parasites. With the drone, you will not have contact with the skin — the drone will do the job and can go to areas where humans cannot go."

The project exemplifies TEAM Malawi's mission of fostering multidisciplinary, community-based research to address real-world challenges. TEAM Malawi — TEAM stands for Technology, Education, Advocacy, Medicine — is a collaborative initiative launched in 2015 that tackles health and development challenges in resource-limited settings. At its core, the project brings together students, faculty, and local community members to create lasting solutions through participatory research and design.

"We bring in young, new students, hand them a problem and they solve these problems,” said Andre Muelenaer, professor of practice in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine,  one of the founders of TEAM Malawi. “We don't come in and hand them a recipe."

"As faculty, we want students to have that global experience because right now, the world has become a global village,” Gautam said. “We give them topic areas, throw them into the deep end like a swimming pool, and ask them to swim out. We don't tell them exactly what to do — they bring ideas every week and we let them learn."

Since its humble beginnings almost a decade ago with just a few students per year, TEAM Malawi has grown dramatically. This fall, the program will engage 64 students from 19 majors across Virginia Tech, reflecting the university's deep commitment to global impact.

"We are trying to work collaboratively with Virginia Tech students and students at Malawi University of Science and Technology," said Gautam. "We want to build solutions where we can help those people in different areas."

For Jackson Lawrence, a civil engineering student from Blacksburg, the opportunity to apply his drone expertise to a global health challenge proved irresistible. Building on previous work by other student design teams, Lawrence, the technical team lead and project founder, spearheaded the development of a water sampling system that could be manufactured for just $300 to $350 using locally available materials — a fraction of the cost of commercial alternatives.

"We reached out to some people that we are now working with, especially in an organization called Micromek that does a lot of work with drones in Malawi," Lawrence said. "We looked at the materials that they have, and we went and designed our drone. It uses the same materials and components that they already have there.

The project is part of TEAM Malawi's LIGHT Collaborative — LIGHT stands for Leading Innovation in Global Health Technologies — that focuses on addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through sustained student innovation. This framework ensures that breakthroughs like the drone project can be carried forward by future student teams, creating lasting impact.

As the team leader, Teresa Thornton, a senior studying public health and environmental economics, brought a crucial perspective to the project. 

"From a 30,000-foot view, I focused on the context - what's the gray area and how can we blend that with the engineering techniques?" Thornton said. "That way, when building the drone, they can address specific target population needs instead of just creating an American drone and assuming it will work."

The team's third member, Vicky Sobot, discovered the project in a simple job posting through the Virginia Tech Office of Undergraduate Research. A national security and foreign affairs major, Sobot was drawn to the project's connection to the Sustainable Development Goals.

"You never think that joining something will take you this far," she said. "I saw that GIS and drones were involved, closely tied to national security work. But I never imagined I'd end up in Malawi."

The significance of the work becomes clear when considering the scale of the problem: Muelenaer said 40 to 50 percent of Malawi’s population is affected by schistosomiasis.

“Having a technology that has already been embraced to some extent by research organizations and by organizations who are doing interventions" makes this innovation particularly valuable,” Muelenaer said.

The two-week field experience in Malawi proved transformative. The team traveled to Lake Chilwa, the second-largest lake in Malawi, working alongside local partners to test their drone system in real-world conditions.

"The drone stays about four feet above the water," said Gautam. "The container pops down into the water, fills up, and comes back to base — all in about 10 seconds. You're saving time, it's cost-effective, and most importantly, it's safe.

The technological sophistication of the solution is remarkable.

"The ability to fly a drone out, take samples, geo-tag where that sample was taken from, and bring it back for analysis is quite remarkable to me,” Muelenaer said. “They have already started adding the ability to not only obtain the water specimens, but to take images that can be processed primarily through AI [artificial intelligence] to determine if the vegetation in that area supports the life cycle of the snail that is central to the life cycle of this parasite.

Beyond the technical work, the students were deeply impacted by Malawi's people and culture. 

"The people in Malawi are the friendliest people I've ever met," Thornton said. "They have a deep, rich interest in talking and getting to know you."

Sobot was struck by the different pace of life: "Just driving through these roads, there's people selling things everywhere. Learning about the financial disparities really made me put things into perspective. Yet the people are so incredible kind and nice."

The project demonstrates TEAM Malawi's commitment to community-based research.

"One big problem that a lot of research projects have is that you'll have people design something brilliant and innovative, and then they will take it to another country and say, 'Here's this solution to this problem,'" Thornton said. "But the people in the other country are like, 'But we don't need this.' So, TEAM Malawi starts fundamentally by asking them, 'What do you need? What can we do? What can we innovate to help you?'"

The project's success reflects Virginia Tech's institutional commitment to global engagement. Through grants from the Office of Undergraduate Research, College of Engineering, and Honors College, the university actively supports students' participation in these transformative international experiences. This commitment was further strengthened in October 2023 when Virginia Tech formalized a partnership with the Malawi University of Science and Technology, opening even more doors for collaborative research.

Their success attracted attention from international organizations, culminating in their selection as finalists for the World Food Forum in Rome. Team members had just two minutes to pitch their project to a panel of judges, including United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization directors. "The room was pretty intense," said Thornton. "About 90 people were there — past participants, investors, organizational leaders. It was so rewarding.

Having returned from Rome, the team recently received news of a further $10,000 in funding, but the ambitions extend beyond technical innovation. This summer, team members plan to return to Malawi to conduct workshops teaching young women about drone technology and entrepreneurship.

"We're planning to create a workshop for young women in STEM in Malawi, ages 15 to 29, at Micromek," Lawrence said. "We'll teach them how to design a drone, program it, and turn that knowledge into a business."

The students' diverse academic backgrounds proved crucial to their success.

"I tried to give a lot of context about our target audience," Thornton said. "Jackson was the architect of how we're going to build the drone, and Vicky helped tie everything together with GIS mapping.

Looking ahead, all three students plan to build on their experience. Thornton hopes to work in food security and international development, while Sobot is headed to law school with a newfound appreciation for global health initiatives. Lawrence, who has an upcoming airport engineering internship, sees countless possibilities for drone applications in civil engineering.

"TEAM Malawi is not stopping here," Sobot said. "We're still out here seeking opportunities, putting ourselves out there. We have a ton of new members too. We're only getting better from here."