She was the first IIIEE student from the Maldives, but many Indian students have passed over the years. Hawwa Nashfa has been close to SASNET, being a member of its student organisation SASA, and besides she was awarded a SASNET/SASA travel grant to carry other field work in the Maldives during the summer 2016. 

After a few weeks staying at CREST in Kozhikode, she has spent time in Male, the capital city of the Maldives, working on a project entitled ”Establishing a Deposit-Refund System in the Maldives – an ex-ante Evaluation”, The project dealt with the management of polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) plastic waste, a complex issue for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as the Maldives. This is because of the geographical complexity, small landmass, and  lack of infrastructure and resources. Furthermore, changes from subsistence lifestyles to increased consumerism, increased imports, and population growth has escalated the number of PET bottles in the waste stream. While PET is deemed as the most optimal plastic for beverage bottles, and for recyclability, the Maldives lacks vital technical infrastructure to manage the PET waste in an environmentally sound manner. For her thesis, she sought to conduct a research assessing the feasibility of implementing a deposit-refund system in the Maldives. 
On 23 September 2016, the daily newspaper Sydsvenskan published a full-page article on Nashfa and her graduation. Read the article (only in Swedish)

More information about South Asia related research at IIIEE.