Saliha Garcia ’21, ’22, ’28 has seen firsthand the water challenges faced by her hometown of Laredo, Texas. Realizing that water scarcity is one of the world’s most pressing issues and will remain at the top of policymakers’ agendas, Garcia decided to take a deeper dive into the subject through participating in a high-impact learning experience to Costa Rica from May 6-15, 2026, which was organized by Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.
The trip – which included graduate students from Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science and School of Public Health as well as the Bush School – incorporated a One Health approach that strives to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and the ecosystem.
Garcia, who is a doctoral student in political science, found the trip especially engaging because of the inclusion of the policy perspective. “The way that policymakers approach the improvement of water quality is through acknowledging all the pillars that are being affected but also recognizing that there’s underlying policy that affects not only the implementation but also the adoption of new water policies and measures to help water access,” she said.
A Well of Knowledge
Funded through support from the participating Texas A&M college and schools and a partial grant from the Texas A&M Foundation, the trip organized the 12 Aggie participants into three interdisciplinary teams. In addition to Garcia, the Bush School’s participants included: Jake Nation ’27, a master’s student studying public service and administration, and Jake Brien, ’23, ’26 and Litzy Baltierrez ’28, both of whom are earning a master’s degrees in international affairs.
The College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science students included: Damali Zakers, D.V.M. ’25 a Ph.D. student in biomedical sciences; Taylor Craig ‘29, a doctoral student in veterinary medicine; Selina Hung ’27, a master’s student in veterinary public health-epidemiology; and Sonali Puri ’23 ’28, who is earning a doctorate in veterinary medicine and a master’s degree in in veterinary public health and epidemiology.
The School of Public Health’s representatives included: Ruby Hernandez ’18, ’22, ’26, a doctoral student in public health sciences; Kayla Morales ’22, ’27, a master’s student in toxicology; Nate Gonzalez ’27, a master’s student in environmental health; and Amanda Munene ’15, ’23, ’25, who is earning a master’s degree in health behavior and a master’s degree in international affairs from the Bush School.
Organized and led by the Bush School’s International and High-Impact Experiences Director Cory Arcak, Ph.D. and Don Brightsmith, Ph.D., an associate professor of ecosystem health in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the teams also were accompanied by Dr. Lindsay Sansom, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in environmental and occupational health at the School of Public Health, and Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Ph.D., the executive associate dean and professor of political science at the Bush School.
Water Works
The trip to Costa Rica served as a microcosm to study the growing global water crisis. In March 2026, the Council for Foreign Relations warned that growing water stress caused by climate pressures and rising demand threatens the health and development of communities worldwide. These issues have led the United Nations to describe this time as an era of “water bankruptcy.”
Costa Rica is facing its own unique issues. According to Water Action Hub , the nation has Central America’s highest demand of water, in terms of total and per capita measures. The country’s concerns about water quality are a result of urban wastewater, solid waste and industrial effluents, and agricultural pollution.
To better understand these issues, the Aggies interacted with policymakers, national leaders and experts, community leaders, community members, and workers who maintain the water infrastructure. In addition, the students visited key water-related sites, such as a rainforest and the Conelectric Hydroelectric dam. They also were introduced to Costa Rica’s ecotourism industry, including visiting the Hacienda Doka coffee estate, the Finca Luna Nueva regenerative farm and rainforest eco-lodge, Poas Volcano National Park, the Los Lagos Hot Spring and Sarapiqui, which is a certified sustainable destination.
The Costa Rica trip also relied on the expertise and contacts of Texas A&M University’s Soltis Center for Research & Education in Costa Rica. “We had phenomenal support in Costa Rica from the Texas A&M Soltis Center and Director Eugenio Gonzalez ’96 as well as other partners throughout the country that Eugenio connected us through The Soltis Center,” Arcak said.
Steady Stream of Learning While each student brought a different academic lens to the trip, the 12 Aggies were united in their commitment to expand their knowledge of how to address pressing water issues. “I wanted to participate in the Soltis Center One Health project because I have seen firsthand how water scarcity impacts people, animals, and the environment. As an upcoming third-year DVM student who completed my first two years at the Texas A&M’s Veterinary Education Research and Outcome (VERO) 2+2 campus in Canyon, Texas, I have learned how real the water shortage is for rural West Texas and how quickly it affects everyday life,” said Puri. “I have also worked in areas where water insecurity is even more extreme, like the Navajo Nation, where many families do not have running water and have to haul water by truck just to care for their livestock and meet basic household needs.”
Nation, who previously served two years in the Peace Corps in Guyana, felt at home in Costa Rica, and found himself comparing the two nations’ situations during the trip. “It’s important to be able to look at different pathways of how to do things and identify what would get a country from point A to point B,” he said. “That also can help stakeholders stop and consider, ‘Where can my community go from where we’re at now?’”
The interdisciplinary teams also developed a deeper understanding of the One Health approach. “I wanted to participate in this field experience because it was an opportunity to apply One Health concepts in a real-world setting,” Gonzalez said. “I was especially interested in putting my academic coursework to the test as the environmental student on the team and understanding how human health, built-systems, infrastructure, education, and local communities interact.”
This trip opened up new perspectives for many of the participants on how to address a seemingly overwhelming global problem. “Costa Rica is a country with many green policies. They also face different environmental challenges than those we see here in the United States. As someone passionate about this field, I wanted to expand my knowledge and be challenged to think about public and environmental health from a different perspective,” Hernandez said. “Growth begins outside your comfort zone, and this project was giving me that opportunity.”
Several participants said they appreciated the wide range of stakeholders that they interviewed. “I remember doing a fast-paced roundtable, where we drove to this location in the mountains of Costa Rica and we all sat down on these long tables in a small, covered space near a river. We wait about 15 minutes and people from all kinds of backgrounds start pouring in: pastors, the old, water quality specialists — it was everyone who was important in this small community we were stationed in,” Brien said. “They told us about real problems they were facing, and we were mostly there to learn from them and try to devise a short policy brief from problems we detected from those conversations.”
As a result of this approach Garcia gained a completely different view of research. “I learned about community-centered research where the researcher goes into the communities and instead of imposing a set of research questions, we have the participants guide how we’re going to do our research and how we’re going to come up with solutions,” she said. “A lot of times, communities are facing things day-to-day that we don’t know about because it’s not reflected in the research at this point.” The trip also created deeper cross-campus understanding as the veterinary medicine and public health students gained a greater appreciation for the Bush School’s commitment to thoughtful policymaking. “Through this experience, I learned that good policy begins with community work and listening,” Puri said. “Policy cannot be effective without understanding the community that will be impacted by it and the realities that they live in.”
