Congratulations to the Class of 2023! Their years at Northwestern have come to a close, but many graduates are just beginning their careers in energy and sustainability. Learn about those among the next generation of leaders, many of whom have come through programs at the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy:
Alejandra Almonte will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
What are your plans after graduation? After graduation, I will be moving abroad for a year before I start my PhD in mechanical engineering. I will be living in New Zealand for the majority of my year abroad. There I will be working in the outdoors as a tour guide and ski instructor in national parks.
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? In my PhD, I will be focusing on developing new ways to sustainably harness energy from existing energy sources in our environment that are not being explored. I want to focus on decentralizing our grid so that we take advantage of energy sources around us as much as we can as opposed to solely relying on generating large amounts of energy supplies and transporting them.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? Northwestern ignited my love for research and I will definitely carry that passion forward. Several of the courses I have taken at Northwestern, such as ISEN 420, have fundamentally made me question and reframe the way I think about climate change and engineering solutions. I learned how to connect and collaborate with people from different disciplines, different backgrounds and different experiences and beliefs so that we can create a holistic solution together as opposed to just working to solve a technical problem, which I have found is invaluable in challenges relating to sustainability and energy.
Taylor Childress will graduate in June 2023 with a master’s in energy and sustainability, energy technology concentration—a degree administered by the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy and conferred by McCormick.
What are your plans after graduation? After graduation, I will be moving back to Washington D.C. as a government affairs manager for ClearPath Foundation, where I will be advocating for clean energy technology development and securing government funding for these projects.
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? I believe we should leave the world a better place than how we found it. For me, that means providing a healthier environment for generations to come.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? I came to Northwestern looking to expand my knowledge of the emerging clean energy technology market and development and I will be leaving with so much more. I have gained insight into the global energy industry and received exposure to areas such as regenerative agriculture and multipurpose carbon capture sequestration. I will take with me a newfound understanding of how to invest in clean tech startups and continuing to make the world a better place.
Bjorn De Groote will graduate in June 2023 with a master’s in business administration from J.L. Kellogg School of Management.
What are your plans after graduation? I am co-founding a Chicago-based startup that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a process called mineralization. I will be leading their commercial operations: fundraising, stakeholder management, and building the go-to-market.
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? While reducing emissions is important, by 2050 we will need to also remove about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide (IPCC) from the atmosphere to compensate for emissions that are hard to abate. To me, this is extremely meaningful since it can have a huge impact on making the world a better place while there is much more talent needed in it. This is a nascent and burgeoning field within climate and I am excited to be at the start of it.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? Being comfortable with not knowing all the answers. Through many internships at carbon removal startups and accelerators combined with inspiring classes at the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy on the newest climate technologies, I learned that it is fine to take risks and experiment. Climate change is such a complex problem, that there will not be a silver bullet to solve it. Instead, we should approach it with a ‘silver buckshot’ approach, by testing and developing many different—albeit credible—things to see what works.
Saahir Ganti-Agrawal will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in materials science and engineering and applied mathematics from McCormick.
What are your plans after graduation? I will start a PhD in materials science and engineering at MIT this fall, funded by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? In my PhD, I will be joining a research lab that focuses on designing materials for energy storage and green hydrogen production (e.g., advanced batteries, fuel cells, electrolysis cells, etc.). This will help me pursue my goal of designing longer-lasting and cheaper materials for storing and using renewable energy, to help accelerate the decarbonization of our economy.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? At Northwestern, I learned everything that I know about clean energy and decarbonization strategies, which has helped me understand how I can best fit into the clean energy landscape to make a difference. Northwestern also gave me unparalleled undergraduate research opportunities for pursuing my interest in clean energy materials, and has given me the technical knowledge and skills to pursue a PhD and thus my future research goals.
Elise Goldfine will graduate in June 2023 with a PhD in materials science and engineering from McCormick.
What are your plans after graduation? I will be a fellow at the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E is a department of the U.S. Department of Energy that funds cutting edge, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment.
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? As a fellow at ARPA-E I will be generating ideas for new energy technologies and helping identify the next big solutions for generating, storing, and using energy. This work is extremely meaningful as it will help shape the vision of the agency and guide the direction of transformative energy technology research and development.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? Getting a PhD is all about problem solving, and one of the most important things I learned is to identify what the most important question is and how to best answer it. These skills can apply in so many situations and I am sure will help me at ARPA-E and every position after that.
Ashton Merbach will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in environmental science from Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences as well as a minor in psychology and the Sustainability and Energy Certificate.
What are your plans after graduation? I accepted a position with Green Corps as an environmental organizer! I will head to Denver, Colorado in August for training and will travel the country for the next year working on grassroots campaigns to enact environmental legislation and climate action!
How will you pursue energy and/or sustainability in your work and why is this work meaningful for you? Working as a part of the Green Corps team means that I will have the opportunity to work on a variety of environmental campaigns, including initiatives to promote renewable energy sources and sustainable business practices. I will also be able to work on environmental justice campaigns, ensuring that environmental activism is equitable and addresses historical environmental injustices.
What did you learn at Northwestern that you expect to carry with you into the future? Northwestern has given me the most amazing environmental science education! I am so grateful to all of my professors and advisors for supporting me throughout my Northwestern journey. After graduation, I will continue to think critically about environmental ethics and will continue to challenge the status quo to make our planet more sustainable. These ideas have been paramount to my education at Northwestern.
There are many Wildcats advancing the future of energy and sustainability. Here are a few more students to watch:
Cynthia Cheng will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s and master’s in environmental engineering from McCormick as well as a minor in art theory and practice. Cynthia will work as an engineer in environmental remediation in Chicago where she will get hands-on experience with contaminant control to further public health outcomes and ecological impacts.
Rob Hickmott will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in environmental engineering from McCormick as well as a minor in data science and the Sustainability and Energy Certificate. Rob will work as an energy, sustainability, and infrastructure consultant at Guidehouse in Chicago.
Grace Hochberg will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in civil engineering and global health studies from McCormick and Weinberg College. Grace will work at Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects in Chicago as a designer and will explore new materials and methods to further integrate sustainability into the design process, make buildings more efficient, and improve occupant comfort and experience.
George (Xianhong) Pang graduated in December 2022 with a master’s in mechanical engineering, energy and sustainability specialization from McCormick. George has joined WAL Low Carbon Technology in Livonia, Michigan as a computational fluid dynamics analysis engineer where he designs electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle components to improve efficiency, and supports the technological development of sustainable mobility.
Peyton Ridland will graduate in June 2023 with a master’s in energy and sustainability, energy technology concentration, administered by the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy and conferred by McCormick. Peyton will work as business intelligence manger at FuelCell Energy to help build the hydrogen economy across the globe and to promote decarbonization using substitutes to fossil fuels.
Bill Yen will graduate in June 2023 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering with a robotics concentration from McCormick as well as a minor in environmental engineering and the Segal Design Certificate. Bill will start a PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford University and will be working with Dr. Zerina Kapetanovic to build sustainable electronics that enable sensing and connectivity in remote areas of the world (farms, oceans, etc.).