Most summers, Iyad Obeid, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, remains on campus, continuing work in the Neural Instrumentation Laboratory. However, this past summer, Dr. Obeid spent one month in Nicaragua, as part of the Engineering World Health Summer Institute, teaching US engineering students how to dissemble, repair and reassemble medical equipment. Although a great deal of medical equipment is donated to developing countries, such as defibrillators and infant incubators, understanding how the equipment works and repairing it when it breaks is a challenge. Much of the donated equipment does not come with a manual, or the manual is only available in English. Furthermore, there is no training of medical staff on how to use the equipment. This program seeks to overcome these challenges by training deploying engineering students to assist in translating manuals, repairing equipment, and instructing medical staff on how to maintain the equipment.

As part of this program, engineering students from the United States spend two months in a developing country to first learn how to repair equipment and then to assist with the repair and maintenance of equipment in a hospital or medical facility. Dr. Obeid committed a month delivering sixteen lectures on topics such as motors, power supplies and electrical safety. Students practicing soldering and rewiring, and even built a power supply.

Furthermore, for the first time in years, Dr. Obeid was a student again, learning Spanish. Of this experience, he said "I forgot how hard it is to be a student and to have homework and quizzes! I prefer being on the teaching end of things, I think."