Portland State University
Engineering Scholarships at Portland State University Support Ingenuity
The Vatheuer Family Foundation proudly offers scholarships to select Portland State University Engineering students who are seeking to make a sustainable cultural impact.
VFF and Portland
After fleeing Soviet-occupied Germany as a child, Hans Vatheuer and his family eventually settled in Portland, OR in 1960. Hans went on to study engineering at Portland State University (PSU) before establishing a Portland-based civil engineering firm in 1973. With a desire to help those in need, he began supporting engineering scholarships at PSU in 2000 as a meaningful way to give back locally.
Engineering for Impact
Significant impact can be realized through some of the most basic engineering solutions. This is especially true in less developed countries, where providing even an additional 30 minutes of light after dark for homework can mean the difference between a child enrolling or not enrolling in school. The health and safety of family dwellings can be dramatically improved with the design and installation of an inexpensive exhaust vent to divert smoke from indoor cooking. In other areas, advanced engineering is relied upon to solve key issues, such as infrastructure improvements and water conservation. From simple to complex solutions, supporting engineering careers that can lead to local and global advancement is central to VFF’s vision.
VFF supports students at PSU’s Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science each year who are motivated learners. They demonstrate a willingness to use their time and skills to be a role model at the community level and to help improve the quality of life for others.
In the past few years we have put our values into practice by partnering with PSU through projects such as:
Engineering Capstone Project: Employed human-centered design techniques to model, build, and test a system that reduces damage to peaches during their transport to markets while also being robust and readily integrable into current peach harvesting and transport practices in Oaxaca, Mexico. This project addressed a key problem facing rural farmers, whose solution centered on farmer’s needs and available resources.
SweetLab: The SWEETlab at PSU developed and implemented cellular and satellite based "Internet of Things" sensor technologies designed to improve the collection of, and action on, data in global health programs including access to clean water systems.
GlobalPDX: Connects the Oregon based international development community to nurture synergies, improve practices, and magnify our impact.
