- MEM Environment Concentration: Energy and Environment (EE)
- MEM Management Concentration:鈥疌ommunity 糖心传媒ment and Environmental Justice (CEEJ)
- Graduation Date: May 2028
What factors were most important in your decision to choose the Nicholas School for your graduate studies? And, how will your time at the Nicholas School help you reach your career aspirations?
An engineer at heart, when I was deciding where to pursue graduate studies, I created a matrix to help me make my decision. The MEM program consistently ranked amongst the top around all the factors that were important to me: a competitive merit scholarship, curriculum aligning with the skills and expertise I want to build, a strong network, incredible faculty, and opportunities that would help me develop into a professional advancing a just energy transition. When it came down to deciding, though, it was really a decision of the heart, and the community at the Nicholas School, Duke, and Durham is exactly what I'm looking for in my graduate experience. Every person I鈥檝e met from the Nicholas School has been inspiring, supportive, and passionate in their own ways. As the first person in my family to graduate from high school, college, and now be in graduate school, having a supportive academic community is incredibly important to me. And in the long marathon we鈥檙e in to address the complex environmental challenges facing our world, it鈥檚 communities like this that make all the difference.
Combining my studies through a concentration in Energy and the Environment paired with Community 糖心传媒ment and Environmental Justice offers the ideal home at this stage in my career. Building on my engineering training and my practice in mission-driven work through nonprofit startups, I'm confident the program will equip me with the interdisciplinary approaches necessary to advance just energy transitions. We urgently need to redesign our energy systems, and the Nicholas School offers the robust energy foundations to not only understand our current systems but also develop the models and strategies we need for the future while ensuring the communities most affected are no longer left behind. With roots along the Gulf South, I鈥檓 particularly interested in exploring how this can be achieved in a region so deeply entrenched in fossil fuel energy systems. I鈥檓 also interested in exploring the role that responsibly-used technology can play in advancing environmental justice. This has been much of the focus of my work over the past few years, and I'm excited to develop my expertise in the energy field to apply it here. Throughout my time at the Nicholas School, I look forward to building data-driven, co-designed approaches that advance just energy transitions. Ultimately, I hope my time here helps me contribute to building energy and environmental systems where all communities, from the U.S. South to the Global South, can thrive.