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Latifah Hamzah

RELP Cohort: 2019
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
School: Engineering

Latifah Hani Hamzah is the Gabilan Stanford Graduate Fellow in Mechanical and Environmental Engineering. She completed her M.S. with a focus on mechatronics and is pursuing a Ph.D. researching water and sanitation in low- and middle-income countries. She is interested in understanding the extent and pathways of contamination among populations that live in areas of high density, low infrastructure and scarce resources. Her projects examine the levels and sources of contamination in stored and source water supplies in Kenyan households, explore the similarity between human and animal microbiomes in Bangladeshi urban slums and rural villages, and investigate whether shared sanitation is comparable to private sanitation in Kenya and Uganda.

At Stanford, Latifah served as the Graduate Sustainability Fellow at Roble Hall and has led multiple projects locally and internationally with Engineers for a Sustainable World. She is President of its local chapter, launching initiatives that include a Repair Café collaboration, outreach programs for school children, and better solar capability among members via training and installation sessions. In addition, she teaches a two-quarter course, "Engineering & Sustainable Development", which addresses the myriad challenges inherent in implementing sustainable engineering projects abroad. She also serves on the University Committee for Graduate Studies and Advising, providing guidance on issues as diverse as parental leave and standardized advising expectations.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Latifah co-founded Engineers Without Borders in her native Malaysia to bring simple sustainable solutions to communities in need, be they water, sanitation or power for remote villages or a hydrotherapy pool for the disabled. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT with minors in Energy Studies and Music and a concentration in French, as well as a B.Mus in Classical Violin from Codarts Rotterdam with a qualification in extramural music education and pedagogy. She has previously worked as a Subsea Engineer for Royal Dutch Shell.