{"547951":{"#nid":"547951","#data":{"type":"news","title":"From Haiti to Georgia Tech and Back Again: Patrick Pierre\u2019s Full Circle Journey","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe past 16 years of recent graduate Patrick Pierre\u2019s life have been scattered with seemingly random intersections with the Georgia Institute of Technology. Pierre, who earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in electrical engineering this past spring from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, grew up in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, near the northern border with the Dominican Republic. He returned to his country right after graduation to put his education to practice, but not before taking a circuitous route that eventually brought his journey full circle.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPierre didn\u2019t always want to be an electrical engineer. His talent in math actually led him down a different path. His first bachelor\u2019s degree was in economics from the State University of Haiti where he was the school\u2019s top student. He imagined that he would pursue a position in business management or possibly enter an MBA program with a scholarship offered by the Haitian government. In order to get ready for the next steps in his career, he attended a language institute at Georgia Tech in 2000 where he spent two semesters learning English. Upon his return to Haiti, he was devastated to learn that his scholarship for graduate study had evaporated due to political unrest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDiscouraged and unsure what to do next, he moved back to the United States where he had some family and hoped he could build a better life with more opportunities than he could find in Haiti. Pierre worked at a number of jobs in Florida and Massachusetts and eventually met his wife, who is also Haitian, in Boston. Life was stable, but something was still missing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI looked at how Haitian immigrants in the States lived. Most couldn\u2019t use their degrees and were working two or three jobs just to survive. They were never home; they never saw their kids,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn order to provide the kind of life that he wanted for his family, Pierre realized that he needed to go back to school. He enrolled in Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, and essentially started over. He took calculus and physics courses and began studying for an associate\u2019s degree while working full-time. Toward the end of his program at Hillsborough, Pierre went back to Haiti for a visit. It was then that he had his \u201clight bulb moment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cGrowing up, I remember studying by the light of a kerosene lamp. Going back in 2010, I saw the same struggles that I dealt with as a kid. Most homes still didn\u2019t have reliable access to electricity. People\u2019s quality of life hadn\u2019t really improved at all in the years since I was young,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe path became clear to Pierre\u2014he would get a degree in electrical engineering so that he could do something to help countries like Haiti. While weighing his electrical engineering program options (he was considering both Georgia Tech and the University of South Florida), he saw something on the Georgia Tech website that cemented his decision. Following the devastating Haitian earthquake in January 2010, Pierre saw an announcement on Georgia Tech\u2019s website for a campus-wide vigil.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI knew then\u2014those are my people, that will be my academic home,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe years at Tech were tough, but Pierre\u2019s desire to earn a degree that could be used to help improve people\u2019s lives kept him going.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf it was just for me, I would probably have dropped out. But it was bigger than me. I got an EE degree to be a voice for people in countries like Haiti,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFast forward to spring 2016 and Pierre was on the cusp of gaining his electrical engineering degree when a serendipitous opportunity presented itself. Teams of students in the IEEE Power and Energy Society and the Opportunity Research Scholars Program were traveling to Haiti to install solar-based microgrid systems in a remote village called Thoman. The systems would provide cheap, reliable power to people who either had none or relied on expensive diesel generators. Pierre knew he had to go.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHelping with the installation, as well as acting as an unofficial translator, Pierre was an oddity to some of the villagers, especially the children.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe kids were really interested in all of the visiting engineers and would flock to us. Because I spoke Creole (the native language of Haiti) as well as English, they didn\u2019t know what to make of me. I overhead them asking each other, \u2018Is he one of us or one of them?\u2019 The adults in Thoman said it was the first time they had seen a Haitian come to help,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn a few weeks, Pierre and his wife and daughter will move to Miami where he has a job waiting with Florida Power and Light. He hopes to continue the work that was started in Haiti and is open to the possibility of leading more projects there in the future. For now, he is satisfied with the way his Georgia Tech journey brought him back to his roots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI like to use an electrical engineering analogy to describe my experience. When you build a circuit, you always have to come back to close the loop if you want it to work. That\u2019s the best way to describe my journey so far,\u201d said Pierre.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EImages: 1) Jiaqing Li and Patrick Pierre hang with the Thoman locals. 2) Patrick Pierre on the Thoman health center roof.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENative Haitian Patrick Pierre completed a journey that was years in the making on a recent trip to install microgrid systems in a remote village in his homeland.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ECE Graduate Patrick Pierre\u2019s Full Circle Journey"}],"uid":"27842","created_gmt":"2016-06-24 14:31:37","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:22:00","author":"Ashlee Gardner","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"547971":{"id":"547971","type":"image","title":"Jiaqing Li and Patrick Pierre hang with the Thoman locals.","body":null,"created":"1467316800","gmt_created":"2016-06-30 20:00:00","changed":"1475895341","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:41","alt":"Jiaqing Li and Patrick Pierre hang with the Thoman locals.","file":{"fid":"92551","name":"img_0173.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_0173.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_0173.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1828060,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img_0173.jpg?itok=4NMTN6JC"}},"547981":{"id":"547981","type":"image","title":"Patrick Pierre on the Thoman health center roof.","body":null,"created":"1467316800","gmt_created":"2016-06-30 20:00:00","changed":"1475895341","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:41","alt":"Patrick Pierre on the Thoman health center roof.","file":{"fid":"92552","name":"img_0411.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_0411.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_0411.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":272939,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img_0411.jpg?itok=OgAWEgI4"}}},"media_ids":["547971","547981"],"groups":[{"id":"1255","name":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1850","name":"alternative energy"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAshlee Gardner\u003Cbr \/\u003EOnline Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ashlee.gardner@ece.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eashlee.gardner@ece.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["ashlee.gardner@ece.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}