Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • WHERE I WORK

How I connect Colombia’s remote communities to safer water

Alba Graciela Ávila Bernal’s research focuses on power-storage technologies, but she also builds custom probes to test water quality.
By
  1. Esme Hedley

    1. Esme Hedley is a science writer based in London.

Alba Graciela Ávila Bernal crouches behind a fountain while measuring water parameters with a device in her hands.

Alba Graciela Ávila Bernal is a multidisciplinary researcher and electrical engineer at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. Credit: Nathalia Angarita for Nature

“I’m an electrical engineer, but I think the most important connections are those between humans. This is what drives my work managing Monitoreo De Agua En Colombia (Water Monitoring in Colombia) a project at the University of the Andes in Bogotá. In Colombia, many rivers are contaminated, for example with mercury used in illegal gold mining. Through this project, the university’s engineering students work with groups in remote areas to co-design water probes, such as the one I’m using in the picture.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 639, 830 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00799-5

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links