Cullen takes 2nd place at Texas Water 2026 Student Design Competition

A group of senior design course students have earned a second place finish in the Texas Water 2026 Student Design Competition, thanks to their analysis of a water reclamation facility in El Paso.

Alan Romero, Tom Nguyen and Anna Nguyen were honored for their presentation, “John T. Hickerson Water Reclamation Facility: Designing a Resilient Water Reuse System for Long-Term Sustainability.” By talking with a combination of industry and academic sources, and analyzing the faculty, they were able to determine its wastewater needs.

“We had been given parameters on the site as well as plan sets and process diagrams,” Romero said “From that point it was on us to determine whether the facility was capable of handling all of the wastewater that goes to it. We looked at every single piece of equipment and treatment process that facility currently had. We got a chance to talk with some industry mentors that work in Wastewater, and they helped us with some industry specific assumptions that helped us keep things moving.”

Romero said they had two focuses with the project — resilience and feasibility. Their design prompt asked them to make sure that the facility could handle everything going through it, and their solutions addressed those issues, but they knew that the other competitors would have similar solutions as well. The group wanted to stand out with feasibility.

“In my experience with academia, a lot of focus goes into proving your claims, adding in charts and numbers that justify your conclusions, for good reason,” Romero said. “But we wanted to let our report justify the claims we were making in our presentation, and focused more on selling our solution as a realistic proposal with budgets and timelines that you would actually see in a bid project. We saw this mentality from one of the judges that was very focused on operational costs, downtime scheduling and equipment training, and I think our different presentation style really resonated with the judges.”

Hanadi Rifai, Moores Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the Director of the Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, encouraged the group to enter the competition after having them in a course. They also thanked associate professor Meng Wang, who helped them find grounded solutions for processes they were evaluating; and Zanina Ilieva, one of Rifai’s post-doctoral fellows with a strong background in wastewater treatment design.

“I don’t think we could have gotten as far as we did without the support and guidance from Zanina,” Romero said. “None of us came into the course with a strong background in wastewater treatment design, so Zanina’s experience was a huge boon to us, ranging from answering questions, reviewing work, and even just confidence as a team as we honed our presentation. Her mentorship helped us overcome a daunting task, and we hope we did her proud.”

Romero said their second place finish was definitely surprising, since the group was made up of undergrads with experience in fields not related to wastewater treatment. Most of the other competing teams had graduate level students among their ranks. The group also formed in early February, after their class, whereas others started their efforts in November.

“Hearing our team announced for 2nd place felt incredibly rewarding and validating,” he said. “We had come into the competition with low expectations, but I think our award was a reflection of the hard work my team I did under a tight time crunch.”

Created in 1962 from earlier organizations, the Water Environment Association of Texas (WEAT) — formerly known as the Texas Water Pollution Control Association (TWPCA) — was founded by professionals in the field of water quality as a non-profit, educational organization. Cullen also excelled in the 2025 competition, with Jessica Alanis and William Vines winning the University Forum Technical Session with their 20-minute presentation, “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Remediation using Colloidal Gas Aphrons.”