Analyzing the Socioeconomic Effects of a Clean Energy Transition; STS Research Paper 5 views

My technical capstone project and STS Research showcase how engineering solutions can increase societal wellbeing while also showing technological measures alone are not enough. My technical project was the development of a sensor embedded with gastrostomy button technology to detect stomach fullness in patients undergoing enteral feeding. In hospitals and homes enteral feeding devices sustain life, but without real-time feedback to guide them, these devices can just as easily endanger the very lives they sustain. Enteral feeding is the medical process of delivering nutrients directly to the stomach and intestines when the patient cannot do so orally. Gastrostomy buttons are one of the main devices used to provide long-term enteral feeding. They act as feeding tubes that are surgically placed in the abdominal wall of the stomach and sit flush against the skin, connected to a feeding set during meals. Currently, healthcare providers rely on subjective, imprecise signs to detect patient stomach fullness such as patient bloating and nausea. Despite high prevalence of usage there are still common complications such as regurgitation and aspiration due to no objective measures of patient stomach fullness. Prolonged overfeeding can lead to insulin resistance and hepatic dysfunction, worsened glycemic control, further increasing risk of infectious complications, and worsening clinical outcomes. Risk of complications highlight the need for the integration of objective measures into current gastrostomy buttons. My Capstone group and I addressed this critical clinical gap by aiding the development of a sensor model that can quantify and detect stomach fullness in any orientation. Our design will allow for real-time detection of stomach fullness allowing for novel proactive prevention and less guesswork for providers and caregivers. While medical inventions, such as my Capstone project, are essential and can increase quality of life for millions of patients, innovation in healthcare is never purely scientific. Likewise, technological progress in other domains such as energy cannot be separated from its broader social, economic, and political dimensions. The need for a clean energy transition is becoming more and more urgent due to drastic levels of greenhouse gas emissions and increased effects of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022) found that between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people already live in settings highly vulnerable to climate change in our world today. However, it is still important to consider the socioeconomic ramifications that this Clean Energy Transition would cause. Many fossil fuel dependent communities globally rely on the fossil fuel industries for economic and social livelihood. While technologies such as a stomach fullness sensor can improve societal well-being, technology alone is not enough. Broader socioeconomic impacts must also be considered, as shown by the uneven effects of the clean energy transition on fossil fuel-dependent communities.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Clean energy transition; Just transition; Sociotechnical system; Gastrostomy button; Enteral feeding

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering Technical Advisor: Jordan Word, Evan Stewart STS Advisor: Karina Ripley Technical Team Members: Jadesola Akinbi, Carlos Giron

English

2026-05-06