When Scott Mitchell ’15 was studying engineering at Dartmouth University his junior year, he designed an inexpensive stander for children who have cerebral palsy and cannot stand on their own. Because conventional standers, which help these children develop strength and good health, are prohibitively expensive, many who need them do not have them.

Last summer, Mitchell received a Thomas Andrew McKinley ’06 Entrepreneur Grant Fund from Bowdoin to help him found Stand With Me, a nonprofit that could make and distribute the low-cost pediatric standers. So far, Stand With Me has distributed 70 devices to physical therapists in Peru, Honduras, Guatemala and China, according to Mitchell.

Now Mitchell, who has been studying biochemistry and biomedical engineering at Bowdoin and Dartmouth, has gotten news that he has received a $10,000 Davis Project for Peace Grant to continue building his organization.

The Davis Projects for Peace program supports undergraduates who want to implement a self-designed grassroots project that can help people and promote peace. The late philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis left $1 million to the foundation when she turned 100 in 2007.

The Davis grant will allow Mitchell to travel to Peru and Guatemala this summer to work with therapists and patients who are using the standing device. He’ll modify the stand for individual children and implement a training program for clinic employees so they can make and tweak the standers themselves. He also hopes to get feedback and ideas on how to improve the stander design.

Mitchell wrote in his Davis application that his “life goal [is to make] critical medical devices more available to the developing world.”