GEARE Passport 2024: France and Kenya

Christina Lumpp is an Aeronautical and Astronautical engineer at Purdue with an interest in liquid

rocket engine combustion cycles. She elected to study for her spring semester in Toulouse, a city in

southwestern France about 2 hours from the Spanish border. While there, Christina participated in

propulsion research with an aerospace systems design professor, helping to modify and integrate

an already existing python notebook created by the research team for gas generator combustion

cycles.

Over the summer, however, Christina traveled to Kenya to participate in research on mental health

in Eldoret, Kenya at Tumaini Innovation Center. This project was brought to her attention by

GEARE’s very own Joe Tort and sponsored by the National Science Foundation International

Research Experiences for Students. The project, a study on the impact of mental health resources

and students’ mental health development at a post-secondary school, was very different that other

research projects that Christina has been a part of while at Purdue and her time in France. “It was a

lot of qualitative research,” said Christina, “any human based research requires different kinds of

rules, regulations, and review board approvals than it does to design a 3D printer.” Because of the

qualitative nature of the research, some unique challenges arose when collecting data. Working

with a team of Purdue engineering students, Christina conducted interviews with the students and

teachers at Tumaini who welcomed and supported her team throughout the program. Christina

described that most of the students had high English proficiency but some language and cultural

barriers presented challenges, especially around mental health language and terminology. A big

focus, then, was to develop relationships with the students and teachers in order to foster a more

open and comfortable dialog when asking about mental health topics and to learn from and grow

with the Tumaini community.

Christina was very appreciative of her time abroad and being able to experience different cultures.

While in France, her typical day was very similar to her life at Purdue, with a few notable exceptions.

Some of the biggest differences she described were class schedules and lunch breaks, “We had

three and a half hour lectures, which was pretty different. So you'd have one class a day and you

would get a ten minute break every hour.” said Christina. She also appreciated her one hour lunch

break where she would eat with a group of friends from her international exchange program and not

have to focus on work or school for a while. Being an avid skier, Christina was excited for the

chance to travel to other European countries and enjoyed skiing down the Pyrenees and the Apls,

where she broke her finger and had to get surgery. Christina preferred the scenery in Kenya more,

however, and was able to explore Naivasha National Park, Torok Falls, and the Kakamega

Rainforest.

Christina knew going into college that she wanted to study abroad but was enticed by the

opportunity to also work abroad. “A work experience abroad over the summer sounded like really

cool experience,” and the GEARE program was a great support system as she knew that it would

have been difficult to organize a program like this by herself. This experience has also motivated her

to explore post-graduation opportunities abroad and apply to graduate schools in France. Her

advice for future students is to seek out research opportunities abroad and in Africa.

Frederick Lang

Electrical Engineer '27

German/Germany