I’ve always loved being in nature and learning life sciences so finding out that the planet I love was put on an accelerated path to cessation was heart-breaking. My sense of duty in regard to environmental remediation was set ablaze when I realized how preventable most environmental issues are. With a double major combination of environmental science and electrical engineering, I fully intend to find solutions to environmental problems like the improper disposal of e-waste in our country. My passion for recycling e-waste was expressed in the research project I did during an internship with the Smithsonian at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Under my mentor, I conducted research on cell phones and the rarity of the precious metals inside them. After surveying museum visitors about what they did with old cell phones, I found that the majority of people opt to leave their old phones in drawers instead of recycling or repurposing them. Are people not aware of the precious metals that go into these mini-computers? When I presented my research to museum visitors, I stressed the importance of recycling and repurposing phones, something I will use my degree to do on a broader scale.

I’m not a talkative person but there is one topic that I can ramble about until my lungs give out: that topic is recycling. In junior year, I joined my school’s recycling team, collecting recycling from every classroom on Wednesdays at 7:30, over an hour before school started. Growing up, I loved being in nature and learning life sciences, so finding out that the planet I enjoyed so much was put on an accelerated path to cessation was heartbreaking. My sense of duty regarding environmental remediation was set ablaze when I realized how preventable most environmental issues are. It was easy for me to become captivated by fighting environmental issues when people like Greta Thunberg and Boyan Slat, two prominent climate figures, appear in the media often. My passion for recycling was also expressed in the research project I did during an internship with the Smithsonian at the Natural History Museum. Under my mentor Dr. Joshua Bell, the Curator of Collections in the Department of Anthropology, I conducted research on cell phones and the rarity of the precious metals inside them. After surveying museum visitors about what they did with old cell phones, I found that the majority of people typically opt to leave their old phones in drawers instead of recycling or repurposing them. It was interesting to learn the different actions others take relative to me, someone who trades her phone in. Are people not aware of the precious metals that go into the mini-computers? When I presented my research to museum visitors the second time around, I stressed the importance of recycling and repurposing phones. I used my platform to increase public awareness of domestic and global legislative activities while introducing values that align with protecting the environment. As a future environmental scientist/engineer, the most pressing issue I will dedicate my career to is changing the country’s legislative policy regarding recycling and waste disposal. Due to a lack of federal policies regarding recycling, only twenty-seven out of the fifty states have a recycling requirement. Some states have recycling incentives for large corporations but few have anything to encourage individuals to recycle. To combat this, I will use my career to work with legislators to require all states, and Washington D.C., to create a new waste disposal infrastructure specifically for recycling. Legislative action like the National Sword Policy that was enacted by China banned twenty-four major types of scrap materials from being imported to China and lowered the tolerable contamination levels to 0.5%. This unintentionally put a hold on recycling in our country. This resulted in a 23.2% increase in plastic in U.S. landfills. Improper disposal of recyclable waste will come full circle and hurt us in the end. As we begin to see the full-scale effects of the consumption of microplastics, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. The phrase “change starts with me” was ingrained in me around the same time I learned how to tie my shoelaces: I come from a family of doers who believe that if you can do it, then why not do it? It is our duty as a world superpower and leader in plastic production to stop what we started and encourage others to do the same and I have been blessed with a sense of urgency that urges me to target the effects of these problems and tackle them locally. Investing in me is an investment in a force of nature, fueled by pure devotion to environmental remediation, set out on improving the unfavorable trajectory Earth is on.

As both a woman and racial minority, I was once told that wanting to pursue a career in engineering makes me a “unicorn,” because my demographic is underrepresented which could potentially discourage me from continuing my education and following my dreams, but entering this career field is bigger than me. While in college, I want to have community support and be able to study in an environment that is conducive to learning, researching, and building lasting relationships with my fellow “unicorns,” and if this is not something I find easily, then I fully intend to create safe spaces for people who look like me, similar to the way my friends and I created a computer science club, specifically for girls, at our school. Engineering is a science that is equal parts logic and creativity, which is why it has been my primary academic interest since I was first introduced to it in 10th grade. With a degree in general engineering and a double minor in both environmental sciences and computer science, I aspire to combine my love for problem solving the environment to find solutions to environmental problems that have the potential to make lives better and the world greener. I will use my degree to increase general public awareness of domestic and global legislative activities to advance environmental remediation and encourage the people in my community to protect the environment as well. I have known that I want to pursue engineering since I took a basic Engineering class to fill a credit requirement for the Science and Technology program I am in at my school. In this class we conducted all sorts of projects. We did it all, from closet re-designs to cars powered by mechanical energy, but the one project that stood out to me the most was when we created prosthetic hands with the goal being to make them pick up water bottles. Although it may have seemed trivial, making a simple solution to a problem so elaborate sparked my love for hands-on, collaborative, project based solution making that has the potential to better people’s lives’. I could see the positive effect my prosthetic hand had throughout every step of the engineering design process. I am going to be a great engineer, not just for me, but to engage others and better the world around us because, “the greatest good is what we do for one another.”(Mother Teresa)

Engineering is a science that is equal parts logic and creativity, which is why it has been my primary academic interest since I was first introduced to it in 10th grade. With a degree in general engineering and a double minor in both environmental sciences and computer science, I aspire to combine my love for problem solving the environment to find solutions to environmental problems that have the potential to make lives better and the world greener. I will use my degree to increase general public awareness of domestic and global legislative activities to advance environmental remediation and encourage the people in my community to protect the environment as well. As both a woman and racial minority, I was once told that wanting to pursue a career in engineering makes me a “unicorn,” because my demographic is underrepresented which could potentially discourage me from continuing my education and following my dreams, but entering this career field is bigger than me. While in college, I want to have community support and be able to study in an environment that is conducive to learning, researching, and building lasting relationships with my fellow “unicorns,” and if this is not something I find easily, then I fully intend to create safe spaces for people who look like me, similar to the way my friends and I created a computer science club, specifically for girls, at our school. I have known that I want to pursue engineering since I took a basic Engineering class to fill a credit requirement for the Science and Technology program I am in at my school. In this class we conducted all sorts of projects. We did it all, from closet re-designs to cars powered by mechanical energy, but the one project that stood out to me the most was when we created prosthetic hands with the goal being to make them pick up water bottles. Although it may have seemed trivial, making a simple solution to a problem so elaborate sparked my love for hands-on, collaborative, project based solution making that has the potential to better people’s lives’. I could see the positive effect my prosthetic hand had throughout every step of the engineering design process. I'm going to be a great engineer, not just for me, but to engage others and better the world around us because, “the greatest good is what we do for one another.”(Mother Teresa)

Engineering is a science that is equal parts logic and creativity, which is why it has been my primary academic interest since I was first introduced to it in 10th grade. With a degree in general engineering and a double minor in both environmental sciences and computer science, I aspire to combine my love for problem-solving the environment to find solutions to environmental problems that have the potential to make lives better and the world greener. I will use my degree to increase general public awareness of domestic and global legislative activities to advance environmental remediation and encourage the people in my community to protect the environment as well. As both a woman and racial minority, I was once told that wanting to pursue a career in engineering makes me a “unicorn,” because my demographic is underrepresented which could potentially discourage me from continuing my education and following my dreams, but entering this career field is bigger than me. While in college, I want to have community support and be able to study in an environment that is conducive to learning, researching, and building lasting relationships with my fellow engineering “unicorns,” and if this is not something I find easily, then I fully intend to create safe spaces for people who look like me, similar to the way my friends and I created a computer science club, specifically for girls, at our school. I underestimated the value of a solid support system until always having support became my reality. I have known that I want to pursue engineering since I took a basic Engineering class to fill a credit requirement for the Science and Technology program I am in at my school. In this class, we conducted all sorts of projects. We did it all, from closet re-designs to cars powered by mechanical energy, but the one project that stood out to me the most was when we created prosthetic hands with the goal being to make them pick up water bottles. Although it may have seemed trivial, making a simple solution to a problem so elaborate sparked my love for hands-on, collaborative, project-based solution-making that has the potential to better people’s lives. I could see the positive effect my prosthetic hand had throughout every step of the engineering design process. I am going to be an engineer, not just for me, but to engage others and better the world around us because “the greatest good is what we do for one another.”(Mother Teresa)