Alec DeLaney '14 wins 2014 SAME award

Cambridge, Mass. – April 11, 2014 – The New York City Post of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) has awarded Harvard College senior Alec DeLaney ’14 the 2014 Colonel and Mrs. S. S. Dennis, III Scholarship in recognition of his hard work and dedication to research.

In a ceremony on April 2, Cherry A. Murray, Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), presented DeLaney with a certificate of accomplishment and a scholarship check for $1,000 from SAME.

The organization has more than 27,000 members and is dedicated to advancing individual technical knowledge and the collective engineering capabilities of governments, the uniformed services, and private industry in the interest of national defense.

DeLaney is scheduled to graduate in May from the Environmental Science & Engineering track of the Engineering Sciences S.B. program. While at Harvard, he has completed summer internships at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 1 office in Boston, where he assisted with the installation and inspection of water quality monitors in estuarine areas, and at Oasys Water, a start-up company where he worked on developing forward osmosis desalination technologies.

For his senior thesis, he designed an ultraviolet (UV) water purification system, combining his interest in environmental technology with a love of the outdoors, especially wilderness backpacking. Backcountry hikers today rely mostly on chemical treatment such as iodine or chlorine to inactivate or remove harmful pathogens from water they find on the trail. A successful portable UV system could have applications for the military as well as recreational hikers.

UV water treatment systems are most commonly used in large-scale applications such as wastewater treatment facilities. DeLaney challenged himself to devise a system lightweight and durable enough to be connected to a reservoir and carried in a hiker’s backpack. He used water from the nearby Charles River to test the prototype he built in the SEAS instructional design labs, and with promising results. His system can filter two liters of water within five minutes and meet EPA microbiological reduction requirements.

DeLaney's adviser on the design project was Patrick Ulrich, Assistant Director for Undergraduate Studies in Environmental Science & Engineering at SEAS.

DeLaney serves on the board of the Harvard Outing Club and has been a trip leader for many of the club’s excursions to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Following graduation, he plans to work at an environmental consulting firm, and eventually pursue a graduate degree in the field.

About SAME

The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME), the premier professional military engineering association in the United States, unites architecture, engineering, construction (A/E/C), facility management and environmental entities and individuals in the public and private sectors to prepare for—and overcome—natural and manmade disasters, and to improve security at home and abroad.

Headquartered in Alexandria, Va., SAME provides its more than 27,000 members extensive opportunities for training, education and professional development through a robust offering of conferences, workshops, networking events and publications. With a membership that includes recent service academy graduates and retired flag officers, project managers and corporate executives, Department of Defense civilians, private-sector experts and everyone in between, SAME is bridging the gaps between critical stakeholders to advance the field of military engineering and help secure our nation.