Your research is about using rainwater as a sustainable resource. Can you explain?
Rainwater is a free resource that is available almost everywhere on Earth. In Ireland and many other European countries, it is commonly collected to reduce the use of treated mains water for tasks such as watering gardens or washing cars. In regions where water is scarcer, rainwater harvesting becomes much more important, providing water for irrigating crops, supporting livestock, and, after treatment, human use for hygiene and other tasks. For example, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, people harvest rainwater and disinfect it in containers using UV light from the sun to kill harmful microbes.
The project on which you are working focuses on Malawi. Why?
Rainwater is not widely harvested as a resource in Malawi, which is densely populated and one of the poorest countries in the world. Our project, which is called SURG-Water, looks at using solar disinfection to provide clean water to healthcare facilities in Malawi. The project won the Research Ireland-Irish Aid Sustainable Development Goals Challenge, for SDG 13, Climate Action. One focus is [on] the engineering, and we have developed disinfection reactors that are easy to maintain and that suit the rural environment in Malawi. But crucially, we also want to encourage people to think of rainwater as a useful resource.
What approach are you taking there?
We are trying to address some cultural perceptions in Malawi of rainwater as something that is slimy or bad for the body. We teamed up with the musician Zeze Kingston, who is known as the Mayor of Malawi and who is hugely influential, particularly among young people. We got in touch with him and he immediately loved the idea. He had full creative freedom and he wrote and released a song and video encouraging people to think of rainwater as life-giving.
What kind of impact do you hope the project will have?
We are exploring how music and video can help to communicate widely about evidence and, in this case, nudge people towards seeing and using rainwater as a sustainable resource, both for everyday use and for healthcare. At the moment, many women in Malawi give birth in district-level health centres that lack clean water, and solar-disinfected rainwater could be used to improve safety and comfort. But we know that real change in attitudes can take years, longer than the project’s lifetime, so we’re realistic about what we can claim. Shorter-term success for this part of the research on music as a tool for public engagement might simply be walking into a restaurant in Malawi and hearing the song playing.
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Last year, you won the Impact Award in the Researcher of the Year (IRC legacy) Awards. How did you find your way into research?
I love music. Growing up just outside Krakow in Poland, I trained as a violinist and played professionally until I was 27. But one evening, I was playing table football, and a tendon in my wrist snapped, resulting in a series of surgeries and ending my career as a professional violinist. I had been studying sociology alongside music, so I moved into a PhD, and my partner’s type 1 diabetes, as well as all my contact with surgeons, drew me toward the sociology of health. A one-year project brought me to Galway. That was 12 years ago, and here I am, still in Ireland, and now in RCSI.
And what do you like to do in your spare time?
I enjoy yoga, and I also snowboard in the Alps in winter and at indoor facilities in the Netherlands in summer. I love snowboarding; there is real artistry to it. My nine-year-old daughter trains too, so it has also become wonderful family time.
