Whenever someone asks me where I am from the answer is never straightforward. With my father having served in the Air Force for twenty-one years, my family has moved six times between four different countries. After every move, I learned how to forge new connections and friendships. This constant challenge led me to become eagerly involved in leadership at a young age, putting myself in a position where I could connect with and learn from many of my peers and mentors. As I came closer to attending college and became determined to pursue chemical engineering, my focus shifted to how I could become a leader in my professional life and develop my purpose during my four years at UCLA. My hobbies lie in high fantasy books, overnight backpacking, and 90s alternative music, so what drew me to engineering? My inspiration is rooted in challenges my generation faces. We have had the existential threat of our unsustainable practices in consumption and production for as long as we can remember. To me, this threat materializes in how we generate energy largely through unsustainable means. My goal is to drive change in the existing energy industry. We only have a handful of years left to solve these global issues, so I believe utilizing the present framework will save precious time, money, and resources. To achieve the knowledge required to lead people in tackling this problem, three experiences stand out: leadership in UCLA’s AIChE chapter, research in low-carbon technologies under Professor Dante Simonetti, and my internship with a water quality consulting firm. In AIChE, I have taken on leadership roles externally and internally. My sophomore year, I was elected as external vice president. In this position, I took on responsibilities where my actions would affect others in a major way – my successes and failures could determine the opportunities available to them. During my tenure, twenty companies invested large amounts of time and over $10,000 in sponsoring our events like the annual career fair and intimate company infosessions. My level of responsibility was essential in developing confident leadership in an industry where minor changes can lead to gigantic effects. This year, I am serving as internal vice president which challenges my ability to motivate others during a pandemic. Some of my responsibilities are to plan general meetings and design workshops, but my main project has been to create the “Intern Board” which revises our current officer board structure to allow for greater involvement of members in smaller departments. Although AIChE has provided me with a leadership role amongst my peers, it is also important to me to learn from professors and lead companies. At the beginning of my time at UCLA, I began to do research with Professor Simonetti, where we have investigated how to utilize ion exchange in existing industrial waste streams to mineralize CO2. Pursuing this avenue of research has helped me expand my mindset on the various ways we can tackle the energy crisis. Beyond exploring new sources of energy, we should also be thinking of innovating current processes into more sustainable and cost-effective forms. Lastly, my experience with Trussell Technologies, a water quality consulting firm, has provided me with the viewpoint of tackling problems while maintaining a strict adherence to regulations and bureaucratic procedures. Most notably, I worked on a study where we collected samples from the two largest wastewater treatment plants in Southern California and analyzed the efficacy and reliability of different lab methods used across the nation in detecting the presence of COVID-19. Through these experiences, I have learned that in order to implement industrial change, you must account for the economic incentives that all companies are subject to and the inertia to change they possess as they become more monolithic. By introducing cost-effective solutions in the short-term and ample incentives to follow them, you pave the way for the necessary long-term changes. As climate change, new technologies, and developing regulations challenge the existing energy industry, companies are at a crossroads of either doubling down on fossil fuels or diversifying into a broader range of renewable resources such as biofuels, wind, and solar. I will work tirelessly to lead them towards the latter.