Engineering students create solutions for Brookfield Zoo Chicago—and much more
September 22, 2025
Share
Brookfield Zoo Chicago had a problem that was not going away.
One of their popular attractions, the Great Bear Wilderness, a two-acre habitat whose open-air enclosures and water features are shared by a rotating cast of polar bears, Alaskan brown bears, and bison, was surrounded by a concrete moat being forced upward by the groundwater flowing beneath it.
The engineering conundrum was, in part, by design, says John Kanzia, the environmental quality manager at the zoo. When it was built in 2010, the moat was dug to a 16-foot depth, well below the 8-foot water table. The zoo is known for having exhibitions free of guardrails, and the deep moat, in accordance with the safety guidelines of the 2002 Polar Bear Protections Act and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, ensured visitors could enjoy unobstructed views of the bears while remaining safe.
For years, Kanzia and his team had relied on a workaround for water removal: a submersible pump system connected to a lay-flat hose that siphoned water from the bear habitat and conveyed it to Swan Lake, a marshy pool covered with lime-green duckweed. But after heavy rains, the lake didn’t need extra water, and over time the hose had deteriorated, leaking water onto the landscape.
Now, thanks to a collaboration with Loyola University Chicago environmental engineering students in a Capstone Design Project (CDP) course, the system may soon get an overhaul. This spring, Kanzia, who served as the zoo’s liaison for the project, plans to install an automated groundwater filtering and reuse system modeled after a prototype developed by Loyola environmental engineering alums Jenna Andersen (BS ’25), Paul Borrego (BS ’25), and Mairead Shannon (BS ’25), who graduated in May.
The system uses a form of black carbon called biochar, often used in soil remediation, to remove soluble iron from influent groundwater. A recirculation subsystem employs water quality sensors to ensure that only properly filtered groundwater goes to the intended destination—in this case, the Regenstein Wolf Woods. The project has the potential not only to protect the structural integrity of the bear habitat, but to provide a cost-effective, sustainable way to treat groundwater and recirculate it to areas of the zoo where it is most needed.
“It’s been fantastic to get a fresh set of eyes in to take a look at some of the challenges that we have and help us determine how we might tackle these things,” Kanzia said.
A real-world project pipeline
For decades, universities have grappled with the question of how to bridge the gap between academic theory and professional practice, particularly in technical fields like engineering. Lab facilities aren’t always available, resource costs can be staggering, and requisite soft skills like collaboration and public speaking don’t always translate well to a lecture hall or Scantron sheet.
But Loyola Engineering’s two-semester capstone model for undergraduate environmental, biomedical, and computer engineering students offers a useful blueprint. Paired with faculty mentors with deep industry experience and sponsoring organizations, like AbbVie, Baxter, SpaceBot, and the Brookfield Zoo, three- to four-person student teams develop prototypes or feasibility studies that the sponsors can further develop into market-ready products and services.
Inside a sleek, glass-fronted maker space known as the Flex Lab, students have access to lab tables, videoconference rooms, mobile whiteboards, circuit boards, microprocessors, and 3D printers to work on their projects across the entire academic year. Sponsors provide a problem statement, directional guidance, and financial support—$250 per student, plus resource fees—but students are left to solve the problems on their own.
The arrangement is a win-win, says Gail Baura, founding director and chair of the Engineering department, who launched the program in 2018, drawing on a similar “engineering clinic” model at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, where she previously taught. Undergraduate seniors gain access to high-impact, real-world learning opportunities. Sponsors draw on the knowledge and training of students to develop blue-sky products they might otherwise put on the back burner.
“For a lot of the students,” Kanzia points out, “this is their first opportunity to work with clients. It’s invaluable experience for them to see what it’s like, from the design stage…to ultimately getting to the implementation phase and seeing a project done.”
Cutting-edge environmental, computer, and biomedical engineering prototypes
The prototypes students design are impressive, Baura says. In 2024, a biomedical engineering team developed a mobile application designed to ensure efficient, accurate drug infusions in intensive care environments. Developed to integrate with Baxter International’s Novum IQ infusion pump, the app was awarded a $15,000 prize by the National Institute of Health’s Office of AIDS Research Technologies in the NIH’s highly competitive (DEBUT) Challenge.
Loyola’s environmental engineering teams, meanwhile, were recognized with first and second-place awards in a student design competition held at the Illinois Wastewater Professionals Conference in March. The first-place Brookfield Zoo Chicago team earned a spot in the Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference at the McCormick Place Convention Center from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1. The second-place Loyola team worked with Gordon Getzinger, an assistant professor in the School of Environmental Sustainability, to build a sensor-equipped surface vehicle that will be used to collect water samples from the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.
Then there’s the cutting-edge innovation of an AI-enabled “smart nose” prototype that a computer engineering team developed in partnership with the Chicago-based spatial intelligence company SpaceBot. The device uses a Bosch BME 688 sensor and machine learning algorithms to detect the presence of cleaning products, like Lysol, or foul odors, like cat litter. Synced to a graphical user interface and envisioned as part of the company’s broader suite of smart building management tools, the device is designed to notify facilities managers and janitorial teams at workplaces, nursing homes, and medical facilities of room-by-room sanitary conditions in real time.
“I’m interested in coding, and a lot of the smaller pieces in the design required working with unfamiliar languages and AI,” said team member Alton Yamashiro (BS ’25). “I learned a lot that I will definitely take forward in future jobs.”
Soft skills set the program apart
Loyola Engineering’s partnership with Brookfield Zoo Chicago, as with many long-term sponsors, has evolved to meet organizational needs. In the past, Loyola teams have worked with mentors at the zoo to develop a water recovery system proof-of-concept for the dolphin habitat, and a water skimmer that removes nuisance plants, like duckweed, from Swan Lake.
This year’s team pushed the partnership forward. Much of the students’ work drew on theoretical frameworks that Maryam Amouamoua, a clinical assistant professor and capstone faculty adviser, introduced in a course called Water and Wastewater Engineering.
But the Capstone Design Project took these concepts a step further, requiring students to submit risk analyses and testing protocols, document milestones, and work within strict time and budget constraints. “This is very different from what they do in their classrooms because these are real-world problems they solve,” Amouamoua said. “And they work closely with a sponsor from industry, who mimics the role of a boss.”
The project also enables Loyola’s undergraduate engineering program—ranked #37 nationally in the latest U.S. News & World Report among programs that do not offer doctorates—to fulfill an applied design standard required by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology for academic accreditation, a distinction Baura says organizations look for when choosing among job candidates.
“Some of the things that our students excel at are those soft skills that a lot of schools don’t focus on,” she said. “Our students are really good at presenting. They’re really good at generating documentation. They’re really good at organizing and project management.”
From prototype to working system
The Brookfield Zoo Chicago team tackled the project in stages. After assigning roles, students collected groundwater samples and tested their iron levels using a third-party laboratory and onsite tools such as a spectrophotometer and FerroVer iron reagent kit. Next, they designed a prototype system of five-gallon buckets connected by PVC pipes and containing submersible pumps. They then used floating sensors and a U.S Environmental Protection Agency software-based water distribution model to test and visualize the water’s pH level, oxidation-reduction potential, dissolved oxygen, and temperature.
By applying these sensor values in a mathematical formula, known as the Nernst equation, the team devised an automated flow mechanism to ensure water recirculated through the biochar filters until it met acceptable water quality standards. In April, they presented their prototype and associated test findings to classmates, faculty advisers, and sponsors.
“I am pretty proud of two things,” Andersen said. “The first would be using the biochar filtration technique. And then I’m also really proud of our recirculation system. I felt like it was true engineering innovation that we got to see all the way through the process.”
Based on the team’s recommendations, Kanzia is planning to install a full-scale groundwater reuse system at the zoo this spring, using a 300-gallon filtration tank, a 1000-gallon storage tank, and a manifold and solenoid valve system that controls water flow through PVC pipes.
The design will route much of the water to the wolf habitat, which currently relies on the Brookfield municipal water supply to maintain its ecological balance and provide water for resident Mexican gray wolves to drink. According to Kanzia, the system could significantly reduce the zoo’s reliance on the municipal water supply—at a cost of $16.29 per thousand gallons, not a nominal expense—and serve as a model for other zoos or organizations seeking to remove contaminants from recycled groundwater.
“One of the great things about my capstone project was that it helped enrich that passion I have for sustainability and water reuse. And that has carried over to my job now, where we try to encourage more water reuse throughout Illinois.”
— Paul Borrego (BS ’25), former Loyola University Chicago environmental engineering student
A proven flywheel effect
Beyond advancing the goals of partner organizations, the capstone program is showing evidence of a positive flywheel effect as former students donate their time and expertise as mentors and program ambassadors.
Take Borrego. In summer 2024, after responding to a job announcement shared by Loyola engineering alumnus Franklin Jakubow (BS ’21), he interned at the Fox River Water Reclamation District, which manages the water supply of some 200,000 residents in and around Elgin, Illinois. In June, the District hired him as a full-time project engineer. Now he is applying technical skills acquired in his capstone project to develop a pump for an algae wheel designed to remove ammonia and phosphorus from wastewater before it undergoes more intensive treatment.
As the District’s sponsor liaison, he will also advise a team of senior Loyola environmental engineering students who will design and prototype a smart monitoring system for the algae wheel. Once developed, the water filtration system could help the District offload the strain on its treatment facilities and cut costs, an outcome with far-reaching benefits.
“One of the great things about my capstone project was that it helped enrich that passion I have for sustainability and water reuse. And that has carried over to my job now, where we try to encourage more water reuse throughout Illinois,” Borrego said.
Meanwhile, Brookfield Zoo Chicago will continue to draw on Loyola’s support, but in a new way. Under the guidance of Cody Hickman, associate director of avian care and conservation at the zoo, senior computer engineering students will design a smart bird feeder to protect the food supply of specimen birds, like peacocks and Guinea fowl, whose food stocks are often raided by geese.
“What am I excited about in this year’s capstone courses?” Baura asked. “For our eighth year of Capstone Design, we have nine sponsored projects, the largest number to date, from corporations and a startup to local government, a nonprofit, and two academic institutions.”
