Environmental Internship Program - 2021 Booklet

2021 SUMMER OF LEARNING 

Environmental 

Internship Program 

1

2021 Summer of Learning 

In summer 2021, 127 Princeton students from 23 academic 

departments worked with University faculty, researchers 

from other scientific enterprises, government agencies, and 

not-for-profit organizations on projects focused on pressing 

environmental challenges. 

Students engaged in research, public outreach, policy 

analysis, communications and other practical assignments 

that contributed meaningfully to research and scholarship 

in the areas of biodiversity and conservation, alternative 

energy, climate change, environmental policy, urban 

resilience, water, and human health. Several students 

contributed to the development of new technologies, while 

others pursued service-based research with a focus on 

sustainability and environmental justice. 

This booklet provides an overview of student experiences 

during the 2021 environmental internship program. The 

diversity of students’ backgrounds, talents, interests and 

contributions is captured in the descriptions of their 

individual projects. For many, the internship will serve as 

the foundation for continuing research and academic study. 

2

We applaud the determination and dedication of the 2021 

interns. Several students were able to work in the field, 

abiding by changing public health protocols, while many 

students necessarily pursued their internships as remotely 

mentored assignments. They worked with remarkable 

independence while contributing meaningfully to research 

and scholarship. 

The HMEI Environmental Internship Program provides a 

unique opportunity for students to complement their 

academic interests with hands-on work experiences and is 

designed to enrich students’ perspectives and prepare them 

as leaders. Interns also benefit from strong ties to the HMEI 

Grand Challenges Program, an integrated research and 

teaching program designed to address critical 

environmental issues for the 21st century. For more 

information, please contact us at envintern@princeton.edu. 

3

Index of Students 

(Alphabetical) 

Caroline Adkins ’22 82 

Anubhav Agarwal ’23 8 

Tiffany Agyarko ’23 83 

Bryan Alfaro ’24 99 

Juan Pablo Alvarado ’23 125 

Jack Anderson ’23 52 

Kaleb Areda ’24 84 

Darin Avila ’23 66 

Manali Badwe ’24 100 

Sonika Bagchi ’23 101 

Manyu Banerjee ’23 53 

Sreeta Basu ’24 9 

Malachi Benjamin ’23 116 

Hanne Borstlap ’22 10 

Jesse Brewer ’22 32 

Ben Buchovecky ’23 11 

Madeleine Burns ’24 73 

Hayden Burt ’22 12 

Justin Cai ’24 85 

Emilio Cano Renteria ’23 74 

Ashley Cao ’23 33 

Nicabec Casido ’23 54 

Darcy Chang ’23 34 

Luisa Chantler Edmond ’22 35 

Alina Chen ’24 13 

Calif Chen ’23 55 

Kevin Chen ’24 14 

Katharine 

Contreras-Godfried ’22 102 

Gavin Cotter ’23 103 

Samuel Cryan ’22 56 

Bridget Denzer ’23 104 

Francesca DiMare ’23 105 

Yaxin Duan ’23 106 

Keenan Duggal ’23 86 

Maddie Esposito ’23 15 

Ryan Eusebi ’22 16 

Joseph Feng ’22 75 

Xuefei Gao ’22 117 

Lilianna Gittoes ’24 87 

Sierra Gonzales ’22 57 

Julian Gottfried ’24 36 

Max Gotts ’24 37 

Noa Greenspan ’23 88 

Ananya Grover ’24 17 

Tejas Gupta ’24 89 

Bryant Hall ’22 107 

Yun Hallowell ’23 38 

Alex Heine ’24 39 

Joseph Himmelfarb ’24 40 

Annika Hsi ’23 41 

Kenny Huang ’23 76 

Sloan Huebner ’23 58 

Tanéyah Jolly ’24 59 

Eva Jordan ’24 42 

Michael Kim ’23 18 

Katie Kolodner ’24 60 

Nora Kreike-Martin ’24 118 

4

Anna Krokhine ’24 19 

Joshua Ku ’22 67 

Rachel Kulchar ’23 68 

Chirag Kumar ’23 69 

Kenzo Lacuarta ’22 61 

Madeleine Lausted ’24 20 

Megan Leinenbach ’23 43 

Amélie Lemay ’24 126 

Aaron Leung ’23 77 

Jonathan Lin ’24 62 

Zihan Lin ’23 108 

Grace Liu ’23 90 

Colton Loftus ’23 91 

Caleb Lunsford ’23 109 

Heather Madsen ’24 70 

Aneesha Manocha ’23 78 

Laura A. Marsh ’23 92 

Daniela Martinez ’24 127 

Anika Maskara ’23 79 

Andrew Matos ’23 119 

Aidan Matthews ’24 93 

Katie McLaughlin ’23 71 

Marissa Mejia ’23 44 

Sullivan Meyer ’24 80 

Joyce Mo ’24 45 

Rosy Monaghan ’24 110 

Natasha Montiel ’22 128 

Bradley Moorehead ’23 129 

Alex Moosbrugger ’24 21 

Jahir Morris ’24 46 

Emily Murray ’23 120 

Ryan Neapole ’23 130 

Cam My Nguyen ’23 121 

Tanvi Nibhanupudi ’23 63 

Rachel Pang ’23 22 

Srija Patcha ’23 72 

Matthew Pickering ’24 47 

Alec Pirone ’24 111 

Elijah Pomerantz ’22 23 

Carmina Rangel-Pacheco ’23 94 

Elena Remez ’23 95 

Sophia Richter ’23 48 

Isabel Rodrigues ’23 24 

Charlotte Root ’22 122 

Zachary Sahin ’23 49 

Harvin Sangha ’23 81 

Hugh Shields ’24 25 

Nathan Sima ’23 131 

Devdigvijay Singh ’24 112 

Adira Smirnov ’23 26 

Ethan Sontarp ’24 132 

Jessica Stikons ’23 27 

Nicole Svensson ’24 64 

Mina Takegami ’23 113 

Mayu Takeuchi ’23 65 

Ashley Teng ’23 96 

Ipsita Tingi ’23 114 

Sam Vasen ’23 50 

Evan Wang ’24 28 

Cathleen Weng ’24 123 

Morgan Wiese ’23 133 

Lois Wu ’23 124 

Karena Yan ’23 97 

Demetra Yancopoulos ’22 29 

Kevin Yeung ’23 115 

Jasmine Zhang ’24 30 

Kevin Zhang ’24 51 

Zoey Zhang ’23 98 

Yaakov Zinberg ’23 31 

5

Student Projects by Category 

CLIMATE AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 

Anubhav Agarwal ’23 8 

Sreeta Basu ’24 9 

Hanne Borstlap ’22 10 

Ben Buchovecky ’23 11 

Hayden Burt ’22 12 

Alina Chen ’24 13 

Kevin Chen ’24 14 

Maddie Esposito ’23 15 

Ryan Eusebi ’22 16 

Ananya Grover ’24 17 

Michael Kim ’23 18 

Anna Krokhine ’24 19 

Madeleine Lausted ’24 20 

Alex Moosbrugger ’24 21 

Rachel Pang ’23 22 

Elijah Pomerantz ’22 23 

Isabel Rodrigues ’23 24 

Hugh Shields ’24 25 

Adira Smirnov ’23 26 

Jessica Stikons ’23 27 

Evan Wang ’24 28 

Demetra Yancopoulos ’22 29 

Jasmine Zhang ’24 30 

Yaakov Zinberg ’23 31 

CONSERVATION AND 

BIODIVERSITY 

Jesse Brewer ’22 32 

Ashley Cao ’23 33 

Darcy Chang ’23 34 

Luisa Chantler Edmond ’22 35 

Julian Gottfried ’24 36 

Max Gotts ’24 37 

Yun Hallowell ’23 38 

Alex Heine ’24 39 

Joseph Himmelfarb ’24 40 

Annika Hsi ’23 41 

Eva Jordan ’24 42 

Megan Leinenbach ’23 43 

Marissa Mejia ’23 44 

Joyce Mo ’24 45 

Jahir Morris ’24 46 

Matthew Pickering ’24 47 

Sophia Richter ’23 48 

Zachary Sahin ’23 49 

Sam Vasen ’23 50 

Kevin Zhang ’24 51 

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY 

AND SOCIETY 

Jack Anderson ’23 52 

Manyu Banerjee ’23 53 

Nicabec Casido ’23 54 

Calif Chen ’23 55 

Samuel Cryan ’22 56 

Sierra Gonzales ’22 57 

Sloan Huebner ’23 58 

Tanéyah Jolly ’24 59 

Katie Kolodner ’24 60 

Kenzo Lacuarta ’22 61 

Jonathan Lin ’24 62 

Tanvi Nibhanupudi ’23 63 

Nicole Svensson ’24 64 

Mayu Takeuchi ’23 65 

HUMAN HEALTH 

Darin Avila ’23 66 

Joshua Ku ’22 67 

Rachel Kulchar ’23 68 

Chirag Kumar ’23 69 

6

Heather Madsen ’24 70 

Katie McLaughlin ’23 71 

Srija Patcha ’23 72 

NEW ENERGY FUTURE 

Madeleine Burns ’24 73 

Emilio Cano Renteria ’23 74 

Joseph Feng ’22 75 

Kenny Huang ’23 76 

Aaron Leung ’23 77 

Aneesha Manocha ’23 78 

Anika Maskara ’23 79 

Sullivan Meyer ’24 80 

Harvin Sangha ’23 81 

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE 

Caroline Adkins ’22 82 

Tiffany Agyarko ’23 83 

Kaleb Areda ’24 84 

Justin Cai ’24 85 

Keenan Duggal ’23 86 

Lilianna Gittoes ’24 87 

Noa Greenspan ’23 88 

Tejas Gupta ’24 89 

Grace Liu ’23 90 

Colton Loftus ’23 91 

Laura A. Marsh ’23 92 

Aidan Matthews ’24 93 

Carmina Rangel-Pacheco ’23 94 

Elena Remez ’23 95 

Ashley Teng ’23 96 

Karena Yan ’23 97 

Zoey Zhang ’23 98 

TECHNOLOGY AND 

INNOVATION 

Bryan Alfaro ’24 99 

Manali Badwe ’24 100 

Sonika Bagchi ’23 101 

Katharine 

Contreras-Godfried ’22 102 

Gavin Cotter ’23 103 

Bridget Denzer ’23 104 

Francesca DiMare ’23 105 

Yaxin Duan ’23 106 

Bryant Hall ’22 107 

Zihan Lin ’23 108 

Caleb Lunsford ’23 109 

Rosy Monaghan ’24 110 

Alec Pirone ’24 111 

Devdigvijay Singh ’24 112 

Mina Takegami ’23 113 

Ipsita Tingi ’23 114 

Kevin Yeung ’23 115 

URBAN PLANNING 

AND SUSTAINABLE 

COMMUNITIES 

Malachi Benjamin ’23 116 

Xuefei Gao ’22 117 

Nora Kreike-Martin ’24 118 

Andrew Matos ’23 119 

Emily Murray ’23 120 

Cam My Nguyen ’23 121 

Charlotte Root ’22 122 

Cathleen Weng ’24 123 

Lois Wu ’23 124 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

Juan Pablo Alvarado ’23 125 

Amélie Lemay ’24 126 

Daniela Martinez ’24 127 

Natasha Montiel ’22 128 

Bradley Moorehead ’23 129 

Ryan Neapole ’23 130 

Nathan Sima ’23 131 

Ethan Sontarp ’24 132 

Morgan Wiese ’23 133 

7

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Application of New 

Machine Learning Tools for 

the Study of Ooids and 

Their Ancient Tropical 

Marine Environments 

ORGANIZATION(S) 

Maloof Research 

Group, Department of 

Geosciences, Princeton 

University 

MENTOR(S) 

Adam Maloof, Professor 

of Geosciences; Bolton 

Howes, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences 

Anubhav Agarwal ’23 

COMPUTER SCIENCE 

Certificates: Statistics and Machine Learning, 

Applied and Computational Mathematics 

I worked with ooids, which are small sedimentary 

grains that form in shallow bodies of water. 

Ooids go through several size changes due to 

many factors such as currents or ocean chemical 

composition. My work focused on automating 

the analysis of 2D images of ancient giant ooids 

captured from the rock record. I worked on using 

a fully convolutional neural network to separate 

each individual ooid from the background in the 

image. Most of my summer was spent working 

to optimize the region proposal network and 

the inside/outside classifiers aspects of this 

network for the ooid problem. Throughout this 

process, I learned the advancements that have 

been made from the most basic convolutional 

networks, to the cutting-edge work that’s done 

in computer vision today. I also realized the 

increased difficulty in optimizing networks of 

this complexity. Overall, this internship was an 

amazing opportunity that cemented my desire to 

work with complex machine networks as I pursue 

independent research in the future. 

8

PROJECT TITLE 

Spray Generation by 

Bubbles Bursting 


Deike Lab, Department 

of Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering, 

Princeton University 

MENTOR(S) 

Luc Deike, Assistant 

Professor of Mechanical 

and Aerospace 

Engineering and the High 

Meadows Environmental 

Institute; Daniel Shaw, 

Ph.D. candidate, 

Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering 

Sreeta Basu ’24 

MATHEMATICS 

I studied the formation of film drops on the 

ocean surface that are created by bursting 

sea-spray bubbles. Studying this process may 

help us understand how compounds and 

contaminants from the ocean are released into 

the atmosphere. My internship focused on 

studying how different ocean conditions affect 

the formation and physiochemical properties 

of film drops over a large range of bubble sizes. 

I used the programming language Python to 

extract data from high-speed videos of a single 

bubble bursting under lab-controlled conditions. 

During this process, I learned image processing 

techniques and how to plot data in Python. This 

experience was very rewarding and allowed me 

to apply my knowledge of computer science to 

research. 

CLIMATE AND 


9

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Characterizing the Diurnal 

Pattern of Gross 

Photosynthesis in Coral 

and Algae Species 


Bermuda Institute of 

Ocean Sciences (BIOS) 

MENTOR(S) 

Yvonne Sawall, Assistant 

Scientist (BIOS) 

Hanne Borstlap ’22 

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING 

During my 12-week remote internship with the 

Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), I 

studied the diurnal (daytime) photosynthesis 

and respiration patterns of certain algae and 

coral species. Daytime respiration has not 

been well described due to the difficulty of 

measuring respiration under natural light 

conditions, and instead has just been assumed 

to be similar to nighttime respiration. However, 

we hypothesized that this could be a gross 

underestimation of daytime respiration. A large 

experiment was conducted at BIOS from which 

data were collected for daytime respiration and 

photosynthesis. I analyzed these data using 

Python and R software, and we concluded that 

there is indeed a difference between daytime 

and nighttime respiration. This difference 

is important to correctly characterize gross 

photosynthesis, which is the sum of respiration 

and photosynthesis. Throughout this internship, 

I learned a lot about marine biology. Due to 

this internship being virtual, my work mainly 

consisted of data analysis, which significantly 

improved my coding skills. I look forward to 

using the skills and knowledge I gained in my 

senior thesis, as well as my future graduate 

research. 

10

PROJECT TITLE 

Potential Predictability of 

the Spring Bloom in the 

Southern Ocean Sea-Ice 

Zone 


Sarmiento Group, 

Program in Atmospheric 

and Oceanic Sciences, 


MENTOR(S) 

Jorge Sarmiento, George 

J. Magee Professor of 

Geoscience and 

Geological Engineering, 

Emeritus, Professor of 

Geosciences, Emeritus; 

Alex Haumann, Associate 

Research Scholar, 

Atmospheric and Oceanic 

Sciences; Graeme 

MacGilchrist, 

Postdoctoral Research 

Associate, Atmospheric 

and Oceanic Sciences; 

Mitchell Bushuk, Visiting 

Research Collaborator, 

Atmospheric and Oceanic 

Sciences 

Ben Buchovecky ’23 

GEOSCIENCES 

I studied the predictability of the spring 

phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean. 

Each spring, phytoplankton grow rapidly along 

the edge of retreating sea ice and provide a 

crucial food source for marine organisms that 

helps sustain the Southern Ocean ecosystem. 

Our goal was to determine if these blooms could 

be predicted using an Earth system model. 

Using data from model simulations, I analyzed 

12 key variables across six regions, with net 

primary production (NPP) as the main indicator 

for phytoplankton blooms. To quantify each 

variable’s predictability, I computed a unique 

metric using many slightly different model 

simulations to provide insight into the variable’s 

maximum possible predictability. I found that 

it is possible to make a skillful prediction of 

NPP approximately one year in advance for 

all Southern Ocean regions except the Ross 

Sea. Moreover, I proposed a mechanism for 

describing how sea-ice predictability propagates 

into biogeochemical predictability with a time 

lag. Through this internship, I gained valuable 

experience using the software Python for data 

analysis and I deepened my understanding of 

Earth system modeling and oceanography. This 

amazing opportunity reinforced my desire to 

pursue independent research in oceanography. 

CLIMATE AND 


11

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Interactions Between Soil 

Formation, Landscape 

Evolution and Hydrologic 

Cycle 


Porporato Research 


Civil and Environmental 

Engineering, Princeton 

University 

LOCATION(S) 

The Watershed Institute, 

Pennington, New Jersey 

MENTOR(S) 

Amilcare Porporato, 

Thomas J. Wu ’94 

Professor of Civil and 


Engineering, Professor of 




Institute 

Hayden Burt ’22 

MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE 

ENGINEERING 

My research was motivated by the questions 

surrounding how soil formation over geological 

timescales is based on environmental forcing. 

I worked at The Watershed Institute exploring 

the interactions between hydrology, topography 

and soil properties. My project consisted of 

analyzing hydrologic data for the Stony Brook- 

Millstone watershed; soil samples collected 

at The Watershed Institute; and 3D digital 

reconstructions of a field experiment conducted 

on site. I continued the work of 2020 HMEI intern 

Maria Fleury by updating her characterization 

of local ecohydrology with data from the 

past year, and I expanded on the correlation 

between streamflow discharge and groundwater 

levels. I also assisted in implementing the field 

experiment, for which we collected soil samples 

from three locations — a topographic ridge, a 

valley and an intermediate location — to map 

the distribution of clay and other soil properties. 

At the ridge and valley, we constructed a cubic 

hole and mound and monitored them by taking 

photographs to create 3D reconstructions using 

the structure from motion (SfM) technique. I 

learned about hydrology, soil chemistry and clay 

formation, and landscape evolution. I am excited 

to continue working with the Porporato Research 

Group during the 2021-22 academic year. 

12

PROJECT TITLE 

Drivers of Opposing 

Seasonal Cycles of Mixed 

Layer Oxygen in the 

Southern Ocean Sea-Ice 

Zone 


Sarmiento Group, 

Program in Atmospheric 

and Oceanic Sciences, 


MENTOR(S) 

Jorge Sarmiento, George 

J. Magee Professor of 

Geoscience and 

Geological Engineering, 

Emeritus, Professor of 

Geosciences, Emeritus; 

Alexander Haumann, 

Associate Research 

Scholar, Atmospheric and 

Oceanic Sciences; 

Graeme MacGilchrist, 


Associate, Atmospheric 

and Oceanic Sciences 

Alina Chen ’24 


Certificate: Neuroscience 

I studied the factors driving spatial and temporal 

variations in primary production and ocean 

biogeochemistry in the high-latitude Southern 

Ocean. Phytoplankton growth supports vast 

marine ecosystems and plays a critical role in 

regulating the global ocean carbon cycle. Due 

to the harsh conditions around Antarctica, 

there have been sparse historical observations 

of the Southern Ocean and little is known about 

the processes that drive primary production. I 

analyzed data from cutting-edge robotic floats 

deployed in the past five to 10 years in the Ross 

Sea to understand regional biogeochemistry and 

its evolution as global warming progresses. Using 

the programming language Python to perform 

my analyses, I identified opposing oxygen 

seasonal cycles in the ocean’s mixed layer that 

vary spatially across the Ross Sea. I then created 

plots to dissect the drivers of this variability. I 

learned through this internship how to analyze 

and visualize data using computational software, 

and I became familiar with the literature on 

Southern Ocean water masses, circulation 

and biogeochemistry. I also was encouraged 

to explore more environmental research 

opportunities and take additional classes in data 

analysis/visualization and geosciences. 

CLIMATE AND 


13

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Real-time Forecasting 

System for Hurricane 

Hazards and Risk 


Hurricane Hazards and 

Risk Analysis Group, 

Department of Civil 

and Environmental 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Ning Lin, Associate 



Engineering; Avantika 

Gori, Ph.D. candidate, 


Engineering 

Kevin Chen ’24 


I used synthetic storm data, published weather 

data, and rainfall values for hurricanes to help 

determine how dangerous future storms could 

be to any given area. I collected and found 

ways to specifically calculate the year-on-year 

surge values for the severity of a storm. This 

will be used for a real-time hurricane analysis 

chart in the future so that people in coastal 

zip codes can see how storms will affect them. 

I also investigated ways to help the research 

group by creating statistical and web-scraping 

tools for their project. During my research, I 

learned to code with statistical libraries in the 

programming language Python and worked 

with the software MATLAB. These are all skills 

that will help me in the future. This internship 

increased my interest in seeing how I can use 

programming in environmental studies and 

data analysis. I am excited to continue learning 

more about these topics and seeing what I can 

accomplish. 

14

PROJECT TITLE 

Investigation of Nitrogen 

Sources Contributing to 

Sapropel Formation in the 

Eastern Mediterranean 


Sigman Research 

Laboratory, Department 

of Geosciences, Princeton 

University 

MENTOR(S) 

Daniel Sigman, Dusenbury 

Professor of Geological 

and Geophysical 

Sciences, Professor of 

Geosciences; Ellen Ai, 

Ph.D candidate, 

Geosciences 

Maddie Esposito ’23 

CHEMISTRY 

Certificate: Environmental Studies 

I studied sapropel events in the Eastern 

Mediterranean by analyzing the nitrogen 

isotopic composition of organic matter 

preserved in foraminifera fossils. Sapropel 

events are periods of intense biological activity 

in the Mediterranean basin. Intensified 

summer monsoons are hypothesized to trigger 

sapropels by discharging excess freshwater 

into the Mediterranean and disrupting nutrient 

conditions, which results in oxygen-poor deep 

water and the deposition of organic matter 

(sapropels). Analyzing the nitrogen isotopic 

composition of foraminifera shells may provide 

insight into the nitrogen sources that fuel 

sapropel events. My role was to pick forams for 

future isotopic analysis, which involved using 

a basic microscope and specialized picking 

equipment to select individual fossils from 

a larger pool of sediment and isolate them 

according to species. I visually identified five 

different species of forams, picking two species 

per sample from 35 different samples. I refined 

and expanded my laboratory and samplepreparation 

skills through this experience. 

Additionally, I was introduced to the field of 

biogeochemistry, which is one avenue I can 

consider pursuing in my future independent 

work to bridge the gap between my interests in 

chemistry and geosciences. 

CLIMATE AND 


15

CLIMATE AND 


Ryan Eusebi ’22 


Certificates: Applied and Computational 

Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Statistics 

and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Submesoscale Variability 

in the Eastern Pacific from 

Underway Observations 


Scripps Institution of 

Oceanography, University 

of California–San Diego 

LOCATION(S) 

San Diego, California 

MENTOR(S) 

Sarah Gille, Professor, 


Oceanography; Teresa 

Chereskin, Research 

Oceanographer, Scripps 

Institution of 

Oceanography; Saulo 

Soares, Postdoctoral 

Researcher, Scripps 


Oceanography 

For this internship, I cleaned, reconstructed 

and analyzed near-surface ocean temperature 

and salinity data collected off the coast of 

Los Angeles in August 2020. The major goals 

were to examine the structure, variability, and 

nature and extent of density stratification in the 

two-dimensional profiles that were sampled. 

Turner angles were calculated to ascertain 

that temperature variations contributed more 

to density variations than salinity, and that 

the upper ocean’s density in this region was 

in fact compensated. Using spectral analysis 

via the discrete Fourier transform, we found 

significant submesoscale (lengths of one to tens 

of kilometers) variability showing signatures of 

internal waves. This variability was isotropic 

(independent of direction) and scale features in 

the profiles seemed to persist for time periods 

greater than six to nine days. This internship 

afforded me valuable experience in the field of 

oceanography and taught me various dynamic 

fluid analysis techniques that can be applied to 

numerous situations. The experience definitely 

helped me confirm that I want to pursue a career 

involving research related to geosciences and 

climate science. 

16

PROJECT TITLE 

Real-time Forecasting 

System for Hurricane 

Hazards and Risk 


Hurricane Hazards and 

Risk Analysis Group, 




University 

MENTOR(S) 

Ning Lin, Associate 



Engineering; Avantika 

Gori, Ph.D. candidate, 


Engineering 

Ananya Grover ’24 


Certificate: Cognitive Science 

There are two main aspects to hurricane surge 

modeling — real-time forecasting and long-term 

risk analysis. I worked on real-time forecasting, 

which is important for evacuation planning 

and recovery. I was tasked with visualizing 

hazard risks for online interactive maps the 

research uses to model wind, rainfall, storm 

surges and waves associated with hurricanes. I 

worked on developing a way to enable updates 

to map visualizations in real time as new 

predictions are generated based on the latest 

data. Through my internship, I learned about 

hurricane hazards and how to model them. I 

contributed to the automatic forecasting system 

by building a web app with Python Flask, and I 

learned to create web-based visualizations and 

geospatial-data presentations using services 

such as Mapbox, ArcGIS and Datawrapper. My 

internship helped me gain valuable technical 

abilities, problem-solving skills, and knowledge 

of natural calamities such as hurricanes. I 

am inspired to continue exploring the use of 

modeling, computational analysis and webbased 

presentation in environmental research 

applications that can have a tremendous realworld 

impact. 

CLIMATE AND 


17

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

North Atlantic Ocean 

Nutrient-Consumption 

Changes During Climate 

Events of the Last Glacial 

Period 





University 

MENTOR(S) 





Geosciences; Jesse 

Farmer, Postdoctoral 

Research Associate, 

Geosciences 

Michael Kim ’23 

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 

I participated in a team whose main focus is to 

correlate oceanic nutrient levels in the fossil 

record with climate patterns, specifically in 

the North Atlantic Ocean since the last ice age. 

Studying this correlation is useful both for 

creating models of regional climate from this 

time period, as well as extrapolating future 

changes in oceanic nutrient density as our planet 

experiences unprecedented climate change due 

to human activity. My summer work consisted 

of identifying and picking out fossil shells of 

foraminifera (forams) in sediment samples 

taken from the North Atlantic Ocean. These 

shells could then be processed by my mentor, 

who dissolved the shells and isolated their 

isotopic nitrogen; due to COVID-19 restrictions, 

I was unable to participate in this portion of the 

internship work. I developed skills in scientific 

research through my experience, and I am more 

confident than before that I will want to pursue 

research as a career. I have been invited to stay 

with the research team, and I plan to continue 

this work through the 2021-22 academic year. 

18

PROJECT TITLE 

Application of New 

Machine Learning Tools for 

the Study of Ooids and 

Their Ancient Tropical 

Marine Environments 





University 

MENTOR(S) 




Geosciences 

Anna Krokhine ’24 

MATHEMATICS 

My objective was to use applied mathematics 

and machine learning to analyze growth rings 

on ooids, a type of sedimentary grain. Ooids 

form their size and shape over time in response 

to various environmental factors such as ocean 

chemistry and current velocity. Observing their 

growth rings can provide key evidence toward 

understanding ancient ocean climate. I manually 

traced rings to create training data and built 

various programs to process and model these 

data. The most important tool we looked at were 

physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), 

which are neural networks enriched by partial 

differential geometry equations in our case. The 

idea was to use PINNs to write an algorithm that 

would parameterize ooid rings and indicate the 

factors behind their growth history. Throughout 

this process, I strengthened my image processing 

skills, got my first experience with machine 

learning, and learned how to incorporate work 

from the larger research community. I saw a 

fascinating application of mathematics (my 

concentration) to uncovering the Earth’s past 

climate, and I am looking forward to working 

more with machine learning. 

CLIMATE AND 


19

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

The History of Eastern 

Tropical North Pacific 

Oxygen Since the Last Ice 

Age 





University 

MENTOR(S) 





Geosciences; Matthew 

Lacerra, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences 

Madeleine Lausted ’24 


Certificates: Global Health and Health Policy, 

French Language and Culture 

High productivity and slow circulation in the 

Eastern Tropical North Pacific (ETNP) results 

in one of the world’s largest oxygen deficient 

zones (ODZ). Organisms there rely on nitrate 

for respiration via water column denitrification 

(WCD). Reconstructing how rates of WCD in ODZs 

have changed since the last glacial maximum 

has important implications for understanding 

past changes in ocean circulation and abyssal 

carbon storage. During WCD, the expression of 

a large isotope effect elevates the 15 N nitrogen to 

14 

N nitrogen ratio of nitrate supplied for primary 

productivity above ODZs. This allows the Sigman 

Lab to make inferences about the extent of WCD 

based on the 15 N/ 14 N of fossil-bound organic 

matter deposited on the ocean floor. I prepared 

fossil foraminifera samples from a ETNP core 

site to be analyzed for a new nitrogen-isotope 

record covering the last glacial-interglacial 

transition. The hands-on work strengthened my 

skills in microscopy. In our weekly meetings, 

my mentor improved my understanding of the 

fields of paleoclimatology and oceanography 

through paper readings and discussions, and of 

the research process in general. I look forward 

to exploring these fields further and drawing 

on this experience for my own studies and 

independent research. 

20

PROJECT TITLE 

Nutrient Consumption in 

the Southern Ocean During 

the Last 1 Million Years 





University 

MENTOR(S) 





Geosciences; Jesse 

Farmer, Postdoctoral 


Geosciences 

Alex Moosbrugger ’24 


The aim of my project was to analyze nitrogen 

isotopes in fossilized single-celled organisms 

called foraminifera from the Southern Ocean in 

order to gain an understanding of the region’s 

nutrient makeup. The samples I analyzed ranged 

from 325,000-493,000 years old. Specifically, my 

job was to identify and collect/sort two species 

of foraminifera found in core samples drilled 

from the Southern Ocean seafloor in 2019. After 

sorting these foraminifera, I sent them to my 

mentor, who processed them using methods 

created by the Sigman Lab to determine the 

ratios of nitrogen isotopes present. We compared 

these data to similar data from other time 

periods to contextualize our findings. I found 

this work to be intellectually interesting and 

a fun introduction to laboratory science and 

research. I learned how to work in a lab, how to 

analyze historical geoscience data, and about 

the possible role of nutrients in influencing 

climatic shifts over the past 500,000 years. 

This experience motivated me to incorporate 

more geosciences background into my study 

of environmental engineering, look for more 

opportunities to do field research, and possibly 

even pursue a geological engineering certificate. 

CLIMATE AND 


21

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Remote Sources of 

Oceanic Heat Delivery to 

the Ross Sea Continental 

Shelf 



Oceanography, University 

of California–San Diego 

LOCATION(S) 

San Diego, California 

MENTOR(S) 

Sarah Gille, Professor, 


Oceanography; Lynne 

Talley, Professor, Scripps 


Oceanography; Channing 

Prend, Ph.D. candidate, 


Oceanography 

Rachel Pang ’23 

PHYSICS 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Visual Arts 

I worked on the Southern Ocean Carbon and 

Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) 

project investigating the pathways that bring 

warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) to the 

Antarctic ice sheet where it is a primary cause 

of melting. Numerous studies have examined 

the mechanisms that transport CDW onto the 

continental shelf. However, less attention has 

been paid to the processes farther offshore that 

bring CDW from the Antarctic Circumpolar 

Current (ACC) to the shelf-break region in the 

first place, which is a necessary precursor to 

the cross-shelf heat exchange that has been 

studied in more depth. For our analysis, 

we complemented data from autonomous 

Biogeochemical-Argo floats deployed in the 

Southern Ocean around Antarctica with 

the Biogeochemical Southern Ocean State 

Estimate produced through SOCCOM. We found 

southeastward flowing CDW bifurcating around 

the Marie Byrd Seamounts toward the Ross and 

Amundsen continental shelves in narrow streams 

steered by topography. I developed a strong 

knowledge of computational programming 

as applied to ocean dynamics and physics. I 

became even more fascinated by oceanography 

and the complexity of the Southern Ocean, and 

I am excited to continue this work for my junior 

project. 

22

PROJECT TITLE 

Ice Hardness Inversion in 

1D With Physics-Informed 

Neural Networks 


Lai Research Group, 

Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Ching-Yao Lai, Assistant 

Professor of Geosciences 

Elijah Pomerantz ’22 

PHYSICS 

I worked with a physics-informed neural 

network (PINN) to develop an inversion model 

for determining a temperature-dependent 

parameter that characterizes the hardness of 

an ice shelf. PINNs can embed the knowledge of 

any physical laws that govern a given data set in 

the learning process. We worked on developing 

the tools to solve idealized problems as we move 

toward applying the PINN to real-world data for 

ice in Antarctica. The goal of this work was to 

identify places in ice shelves where we expect 

ice to be softer, which will help determine where 

ice shelves may be susceptible to breaking. I 

found that our PINN model can make good 

predictions about the ice-hardness parameter 

for our idealized problems, even when subject to 

noisy, sparse or oscillatory data. I learned how to 

apply novel machine learning techniques to solve 

challenging physics problems. It was fascinating 

to see the ways that computer science, physics 

and climate science can intersect to help us 

better understand how our polar regions will 

react to a warming climate. 

CLIMATE AND 


23

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Genomic Variations in 

Hydrogenophilus 

thermoluteolus Genomes 

Across a Small-scale Hot 

Spring Soil Gradient and 

Global Geothermal 

Environments 


Geomicrobiology 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Tullis Onstott, Professor 

of Geosciences; Zachary 

Garvin, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences 

Isabel Rodrigues ’23 

GEOSCIENCES 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Finance 

Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus is an 

understudied microorganism found globally 

in hot spring environments. It was identified 

in a series of four soil samples collected 

around the Polloquere Hot Springs in Lauca 

National Park, Chile. The soil surrounding 

Polloquere is characterized by stark differences 

in temperature, biology and chemistry. Yet, 

previous investigations of this soil found that 

H. thermoluteolus was somehow present in 

about the same amount across the studied area. 

I compared four genomes reconstructed from 

Polloquere soil samples to each other and to 

publicly available H. thermoluteolus genomes. I 

was able to identify several differences between 

soil samples taken closest to and farthest from 

the hot spring, as well as between the soil 

samples and the externally gathered genomes. 

The most intriguing discovery was an increased 

capability of all soil genomes to process nitrogen. 

Pangenomics was an integral part of this project, 

as was command-line programming and use of 

the open-source genomics application Anvi’o. 

This project directly influenced the topics I plan 

to study for my independent work and beyond, 

and vastly improved my confidence in analyzing 

biological data. I hope to continue this research 

in some form in the coming year. 

24

PROJECT TITLE 

Extinction of the 

Dinosaurs Recorded in an 

Andean Paleolake 





University 

MENTOR(S) 




Geosciences 

Hugh Shields ’24 


I primarily focused on ooids, grains of calcium 

carbonate that form in shallow waters. Ooids 

grow by precipitation and shrink by abrasion. 

For this reason, their shape can reveal data 

about ancient ocean chemistry, currents and 

depth. I analyzed cross sections of rock samples 

containing ooids, specifically trying to develop 

a machine vision program that would outline 

ooid cross sections within the images. Individual 

cross sections could then be stacked to produce 

a 3D model of the entire ooid, allowing for the 

measurement of sphericity and ellipticity. To 

complete the segmentation task, I used the 

software TensorFlow to implement Mask Region 

Based Convolutional Neural Networks (Mask 

R-CNN), a machine learning model for object 

detection. After tuning the network, I finally 

reached the point where the model was obtaining 

relatively high accuracy scores, and I began to 

transition toward applying the network to a wider 

variety of samples. The model I trained revealed 

that segmentation could be done successfully 

using Mask R-CNN without hours of laborious 

manual tracing. Ultimately, the project gave me 

the theoretical and practical experience needed 

to implement a cutting-edge machine vision 

model and revealed the wide applicability of 

machine vision. 

CLIMATE AND 


25

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

The Role of Parasites in 

Controlling Phytoplankton 

Community Composition 

and Ocean Productivity 


Ward Lab, Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Bess Ward, William J. 

Sinclair Professor of 

Geosciences and the High 


Institute; Jenna Lee, Ph.D. 

candidate, Geosciences 

Adira Smirnov ’23 


I studied the community composition in samples 

of seawater from six stations sampled by the Tara 

Oceans Project. Three were in high-productivity 

regions off coastlines, and three were in gyres 

and oligotrophic (lower productivity) regions. 

I used the QIIME bioinformatics platform to 

classify over 100 million sequences of DNA. 

I used these data to create stacked bar charts 

showing the community composition of each 

species at the supergroup level, and I compared 

the differences in relative abundance between 

high-productivity and oligotrophic stations. As 

expected, I found a higher relative abundance 

of diatoms in high-productivity stations. I also 

looked at the relative abundance of Syndiniales, 

an order of parasitic species, and measured how 

it varied in relation to the relative abundance 

of diatoms. I gained experience in using QIIME 

to analyze FASTQ files, and I learned how to 

assign genetic samples to taxonomic groups. I 

was fascinated to learn about the importance 

of parasites in community composition, and I 

hope to further study how species interactions 

can be as important in determining community 

composition as environmental factors. 

26

PROJECT TITLE 

Responses of ENSO to 

Volcanic Eruptions in 

High-Resolution Climate 

Model Simulations 


Vecchi Research 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Gabriel Vecchi, Professor 

of Geosciences and the 

High Meadows 

Environmental Institute; 

Wenchang Yang, 


Scholar, Geosciences 

Jessica Stikons ’23 



Language and Culture 

I studied how the El Niño-Southern Oscillation 

(ENSO) — an interannual, acyclic fluctuation 

in tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures 

and winds over multiple years — responds to 

volcanic eruptions. ENSO is a major driver of 

natural climate variations in many parts of 

the world, making it an important factor in 

understanding the global climate. My role in 

this internship was to extract and visualize data 

obtained from climate model simulations to 

uncover patterns that could yield insight into the 

impact of volcanic eruptions on ENSO. I learned 

how to conduct data analysis and visualization 

using the programming language Python. I am 

particularly grateful that I had the opportunity 

to become familiar with working with large data 

sets, a task that seemed daunting before. What 

I found most interesting was that I could take 

massive, opaque data sets and transform them 

into compact, interpretable figures that provided 

insights into the mechanisms by which our world 

operates. Overall, I gained a deeper appreciation 

for the value of data visualization and I hope to 

incorporate similar methods into my work at 

Princeton and beyond. 

CLIMATE AND 


27

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Using Machine Learning to 

Analyze Earth’s First 

Reefs 





University 

MENTOR(S) 


of Geosciences; Ryan 

Manzuk, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences 

Evan Wang ’24 


I studied archaeocyathids, which were ancient 

reef-building organisms. The motivation for 

studying these organisms is twofold. First, 

since reefs provide an abundance of habitats 

and nutrients, there may be a significant link 

between archaeocyathids and the Cambrian 

explosion of 500 million years ago during which 

biodiversity skyrocketed. Second, in the face 

of climate change, predicting reef behavior 

is crucial and obtaining empirical data from 

Earth’s history can bolster our modern models. 

I analyzed a data set of fossil images taken from 

the Yukon territory in Canada with the goal of 

understanding how archaeocyathids and other 

sediments moved and progressed through time. 

I worked on automating a process for identifying 

and classifying sediments in image data that 

involved using a convolutional neural network — 

a type of machine learning model — to segment 

parts of images. This process included converting 

old training data to a more useful format, 

creating my own training data, and improving 

the neural network. I gained experience working 

with the programming languages MATLAB and 

Python, and I loved being able to apply coding 

to novel research. My internship reaffirmed my 

interest in the intersection of computer science 

and the environment. 

28

PROJECT TITLE 

Zinc Chemistry in Oceans 


Molecular Environmental 

Geochemistry Group, 

Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Satish Myneni, Professor 

of Geosciences; Jianshu 

Duan, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences; Kewei Zhao, 


Chemistry 

Demetra Yancopoulos ’22 


Certificate: Sustainable Energy 

Biological activity in the Southern Ocean directly 

impacts the global ocean and atmosphere. In 

nutrient-rich waters, marine biota are typically 

able to grow at high rates and, in the process, fix 

loads of atmospheric carbon. In the Southern 

Ocean, however, biological productivity is 

relatively low despite high concentrations 

of major nutrients. This has previously been 

explained by exceedingly low concentrations of 

bioavailable iron, an essential trace nutrient. My 

research focused on zinc, a less explored trace 

metal in the Southern Ocean. Like iron, zinc is 

an essential trace nutrient for marine biota. We 

inquired whether there is enough zinc — and 

enough bioavailable zinc — to meet the nutrient 

requirements of marine biota. To answer these 

questions, I investigated the distribution and 

speciation of zinc in seawater. I conducted 

thermodynamic modeling of zinc speciation 

using realistic estimates of seawater parameters 

to determine which zinc minerals have the 

potential to precipitate in different marine 

conditions. This information can help us refine a 

schematic for the biogeochemical cycling of zinc 

in the Southern Ocean, which directly influences 

large-scale ocean and atmosphere dynamics. 

CLIMATE AND 


29

CLIMATE AND 


PROJECT TITLE 

Using Machine Learning to 

Analyze Earth’s First 

Reefs 





University 

MENTOR(S) 


of Geosciences; Ryan 

Manzuk, Ph.D. candidate, 

Geosciences 

Jasmine Zhang ’24 


I investigated the fossils of 500 million-year-old 

reef-building organisms called archaeocyathids. 

To better understand the role that modern coral 

reefs play in mitigating climate change, we 

need to examine their prehistoric counterparts 

to determine the structure of these organisms 

and their interactions with their environment. 

My goal was to create an automated machine 

learning system known as a convolutional neural 

network to identify pixels of archaeocyathids 

from images of fossil samples. Before training 

the neural network, I created training data by 

segmenting and labeling archaeocyathid crosssection 

images. After training the network, 

I adjusted different parameters to improve 

its predictions with the goal of creating a 3D 

model of the archaeocyathids. As a result of this 

internship, my knowledge of computer vision and 

machine learning greatly increased, and I now 

have significant experience using MATLAB and 

Python software. I’m incredibly grateful to this 

internship for providing me with an informative 

and thought-provoking introduction to both 

geoscience and research, two areas I am excited 

to continue exploring. 

30

PROJECT TITLE 

Designing Probes for a 

nosZ Microarray 


Ward Lab, Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Bess Ward, William J. 

Sinclair Professor of 

Geosciences and the High 


Institute; Naomi Intrator, 


Geosciences 

Yaakov Zinberg ’23 

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 

I designed the probes for a microarray for nosZ, 

the gene responsible for the conversion of 

nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas — into 

elemental nitrogen as part of the denitrification 

pathway. The Ward Lab will use the microarray 

to determine the organisms that are present in 

their samples and the versions of nosZ these 

organisms use. I began by consolidating all 

nosZ sequences in the National Center for 

Biotechnology Information database with the 

Ward Lab’s own sequences, then used programs 

such as CD-HIT, MAFFT and EMBOSS to cluster 

sequences based on similarity. I then generated 

alignments and consensus sequences that 

allowed me to ultimately choose the 70 base pair 

regions from each cluster to use as individual 

probes on the microarray. I improved upon my 

programming skills during this internship by 

writing programs in R, shell script, and Slurm 

Workload Manager. Additionally, I gained 

exposure to marine biology research and the 

world of academic research more broadly, which 

will help inform my studies in molecular biology. 

CLIMATE AND 


* This internship is connected to the HMEI Water 

and the Environment Challenge project, “Fate of 

Nitrite Determines Nitrogen Removal in Coastal 

Waters.” 

31

Jesse Brewer ’22 


CONSERVATION 

AND BIODIVERSITY 

PROJECT TITLE 

USDA Forest Service 

Southern Research 

Station 


U.S. Department of 

Agriculture (USDA) 

Forest Service Southern 

Research Station 

MENTOR(S) 

Jennifer Moore Myers, 

Communications Team 

Leader, USDA Forest 

Service Southern 


I participated in a virtual internship with the 

communications team of the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Southern 

Research Station. My primary activities 

included reading primary literature produced 

at the Southern Research Station, interviewing 

scientists about their work, and drafting 

articles summarizing their research findings 

for the USDA news site, CompassLive. This 

was an important task because it allowed me 

to share complex research findings with a 

wide audience by breaking them down into 

relatable and understandable terms. I gained 

a lot of knowledge and experience throughout 

this internship, particularly in my ability to 

communicate scientific research. As a pre-med 

molecular biology major, this skill will help me 

as I continue to interact with primary scientific 

literature throughout my career. 

32

Ashley Cao ’23 


PROJECT TITLE 

Million Tree Project 


Shanghai Roots & Shoots 

MENTOR(S) 

Xian Liu, Million Tree 

Project Director, Shanghai 

Roots & Shoots; Hanlong 

Chen, Million Tree Project 

Coordinator, Shanghai 

Roots & Shoots; Kai 

Wang, Million Tree Project 

Regional Manager, 


I had the great opportunity to work on the 

Million Tree Project (MTP) with Shanghai Roots 

& Shoots, a nongovernmental organization 

whose work centers around large-scale tree 

planting projects to combat climate change and 

desertification. Their newest MTP effort focuses 

on planting trees in the Bangliang Gibbon 

National Nature Reserve to connect and restore 

the existing fragmented habitats of the critically 

endangered cao vit gibbon (CVG). I contributed to 

the MTP by taking on a number of my own small 

projects, from redesigning the outdated learning 

guide, to creating introductory materials for 

the newest CVG program. I exercised my design 

skills in particular, working on the online design 

platform Canva to put together promotional 

and educational materials ranging from “Save 

the Gibbon” stickers to “Desertification 101” 

infographics. Perhaps the most interesting part 

of my work was being able to witness firsthand 

how to build the foundations for a program in 

active restoration. This internship reignited my 

passion for conservation, and I would like to 

learn more about restoring and strengthening 

ecosystem health as I continue in my academic 

career. 

CONSERVATION 


33

Darcy Chang ’23 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Climate Change, Plant- 

Pollinator Interactions and 

Hummingbird Color Vision 

in the Rocky Mountains 


Stoddard Lab, 

Department of Ecology 

and Evolutionary Biology, 


LOCATION(S) 

Rocky Mountain 

Biological Laboratory, 

Gothic, Colorado 

MENTOR(S) 

Mary Caswell Stoddard, 

Associate Professor of 

Ecology and Evolutionary 

Biology 

I studied hummingbird foraging behavior 

at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. I 

worked placing time-lapse cameras near flowers 

pollinated by broad-tailed hummingbirds so the 

research team could quantify visitation rates for 

different flower species. This long-term project 

in the Stoddard Lab will elucidate the foraging 

decisions of broad-tailed hummingbirds, which 

could be useful in predicting how these key 

pollinators will respond as climate change 

initiates misalignments in phenology, or the 

seasonal timing of biological events. I also 

helped use a spectrophotometer to measure 

the reflectance spectra of flower species in the 

study site, both those visited by hummingbirds 

and those pollinated by other mechanisms. 

Similarly, we used an ultraviolet-sensitive 

camera to photograph these flowers in visible 

and ultraviolet light. Both projects add to our 

understanding of how hummingbirds perceive 

potential food sources and how they choose 

flowers to visit. Overall, my experience taught 

me a lot about hummingbird behavior and 

visual systems, and it invigorated my interest 

in ecology. I also refined my observational and 

problem-solving skills, gained experience in 

working with field equipment, and improved my 

ability to design methodologies. 

* This internship is connected to the HMEI Climate 

and Energy Challenge project, “Investigating the 

Effects of Climate Change on Hummingbird Sensory 

Landscapes.” 

34

Luisa Chantler Edmond ’22 

ANTHROPOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Northern Kenya 

Conservation Clubs 


Rubenstein Research 



Biology, Princeton 

University; Mpala 

Research Centre 

MENTOR(S) 

Daniel Rubenstein, Class 

of 1877 Professor of 

Zoology, Professor of 


Biology 

The goal of my internship was to assist the 

Northern Kenya Conservation Clubs in creating 

active-learning lesson plans that will teach 

children in Laikipia County, Kenya, about 

the value of their local environment and its 

conservation. The biggest project that my fellow 

intern, Yun Hallowell, and I undertook was 

designing lesson plans for World Elephant Day. 

These lesson plans aimed to teach students 

not only about the animals and the ecological 

processes they are focused on, but also about 

elephants’ inherent value and positive effect 

on the students’ lives. By needing to work 

across multiple time zones, I learned how to 

best communicate with my project leaders and 

fellow intern about the challenges I was facing. 

I also relied on and challenged my creativity 

in writing the lesson plans as we had to think 

about how best to translate the work from paper 

to a physical activity the students would enjoy. 

I found listening to the Mpala researchers talk 

about their work to be one of the most interesting 

parts of the internship. Hearing not only about 

their projects, but their journeys into research 

was fascinating! 

CONSERVATION 


35

Julian Gottfried ’24 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Climate Change, Plant- 

Pollinator Interactions, 

and Hummingbird Color 

Vision in the Rocky 

Mountains 


Stoddard Lab, 




LOCATION(S) 




MENTOR(S) 

Mary Caswell Stoddard, 



Biology 

I studied hummingbird-flower interactions 

and hummingbird color vision to understand 

how shifting climatic factors are causing a 

timing mismatch between pollinators and the 

flowers they visit. I worked setting up field 

cameras on dozens of flower species so the 

research team could quantitatively assess how 

hummingbirds use resources, and how their 

usage is changing over the years. We introduced 

techniques to monitor difficult flower species 

and expanded the scope of the project to more 

flowers. We also used spectrophotometry and 

ultraviolet imaging to build a database of color 

measurements for regional flowers that could 

help us determine how hummingbirds use color 

vision in pollination. The range of imaging 

technologies was fascinating and challenging, 

each requiring different methodologies. Finally, 

we created protocols for floral transects to 

collect data on shifting populations. I learned 

how to troubleshoot sensitive equipment in 

the field, gained experience in developing and 

testing scientific protocols, and honed my skills 

in natural history. This internship gave me an 

excellent frame of reference for what fieldwork 

and ecological research entail, and I look forward 

to processing and analyzing the summer’s data 

as I continue to work with the lab. 


and Energy Challenge project, “Investigating the 

Effects of Climate Change on Hummingbird Sensory 

Landscapes.” 

36

Max Gotts ’24 

UNDECLARED 

Certificates: Linguistics, Planets and Life 

PROJECT TITLE 

Impact of Grazing Regimes 

on Rangeland Quality and 

Wildlife and Livestock Use 








Our research related to the Mpala Research 

Centre in Kenya sought to integrate wildlife 

biodiversity and cattle farming. We were 

particularly interested in finding a way for 

grazing cattle that is minimally detrimental, or 

even positively mutualistic. To do so, we used 

vegetative transect data, herd observations, 

satellite imagery, machine learning models, the 

software Wildbook, the geographical software 

QGIS, programming in R, and a multitude of 

research figures. Our immediate goal for much of 

the project was to gain an understanding of the 

drivers of zebra movement, and to help herders 

move cattle to where we expected there to be the 

best terrain with respect to vegetative quality 

and proximity to zebras. 

CONSERVATION 


MENTOR(S) 





Biology 

37

Yun Hallowell ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 

Certificates: Language and Culture, Creative 

Writing 

CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Northern Kenya 

Conservation Clubs 







Research Center 

MENTOR(S) 





Biology 

I worked with the Northern Kenya Conservation 

Clubs, an afterschool program that teaches 

environmental science with a focus on 

conservation. I worked virtually with my fellow 

intern to create new, and organize existing, 

teaching materials. In between Swahili lessons 

and attending lectures by Mpala scientists, I 

wrote lesson plans with my fellow intern on a 

wide variety of topics. Our goals were to include 

as much experiential learning and active 

learning as possible, and to choose topics that 

were relevant to local environmental issues. By 

far the most challenging — and rewarding — 

part of the process was incorporating economic, 

political and sociocultural perspectives into 

the games and activities we designed. This 

experience made me think a lot about the 

intersection between environmental science and 

history, and the benefit of teaching these subjects 

as interrelated issues. As someone who is 

interested in a career in education, the potential 

of this interdisciplinary approach to bring a 

different kind of understanding really stood out 

to me, and it is something I’ll carry with me as I 

continue to think about methods of teaching and 

learning. 

38

Alex Heine ’24 


Certificates: Archaeology, Environmental Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 

“Go to the Ant Thou 

Sluggard, Consider Her 

Ways and Be Wise”: 

Buffelgrass Seed 

Preferences, Predation 

and Dispersal in Kenya 

Home Range by Messor 

Harvester Ants 


Mpala Research Centre 

MENTOR(S) 

Dino Martins, Executive 

Director, Mpala Research 

Centre, and Visiting 




University 

I examined pictures and videos of Messor 

harvester ants and their preference for 

buffelgrass seeds in Laikipia County, Kenya. 

The predation of buffelgrass by harvester ants 

could provide insights into how to manage the 

plant's population in areas where it is invasive, 

such as the United States. During the study, I 

observed and documented the ants via video 

as they selected seeds from a pile collected by 

researchers in the field. Then, I ran an analysis of 

variance model to determine if the differences in 

seed preference were statistically significant. My 

efforts contributed to the study’s continuing data 

collection, which will further the understanding 

of the relationship between these two species. 

This internship provided me the opportunity 

to learn basic Swahili, gain practical data 

processing skills, and gain new perspectives on 

conservation’s impact on humans. Due to this 

experience, I further developed my confidence in 

pursuing research in conservation biology, and 

I now have new possibilities and ideas for future 

research. 

CONSERVATION 


39

Joseph Himmelfarb ’24 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Urban Biodiversity and 

Conservation at NYC Parks 


Natural Resources Group, 

New York City Department 

of Parks and Recreation 

(NYC Parks) 

LOCATION(S) 

New York City, New York 

MENTOR(S) 

Georgina Cullman, 

Ecologist, NYC Parks; 

Clara Holmes, Plant 

Ecologist, NYC Parks; 

Jamie Ong, Environmental 

Protection Project 

Manager, NYC Parks; 

Heather Platt, Ecological 

Restoration Project 

Assistant, NYC Parks; 

Desiree Yanes, Vegetation 

Monitoring Technic, NYC 

Parks 

Cities are commonly regarded as ecological 

deserts, but they are often overlooked refuges 

for biodiversity. For my internship, I worked on 

conserving native plant species in New York 

City with the conservation team of the New 

York City Department of Parks and Recreation’s 

(NYC Parks) Natural Resources Group. My 

primary responsibility was to draft conservation 

action plans (CAPs) for several locally sensitive 

wildflowers. CAPs provide ecological and 

biological details on how to protect and conserve 

specific species. I studied the scientific literature 

on the target wildflower species and their close 

relatives to compile information that would be 

useful for conservation efforts. I also assisted 

in fieldwork, traveling to a range of parks across 

the five boroughs to conduct rare-plant surveys 

and manage existing populations. I experienced 

the ongoing efforts by NYC Parks to conserve 

and restore natural areas, from salt marshes 

to woodlands. My internship provided an 

opportunity to conduct both the research that 

enables species management and the fieldwork 

that pushes that research forward. I learned 

firsthand the value of urban conservation, 

and I am eager to continue learning about the 

ecosystems that persist alongside industrial 

landscapes. 

40

Annika Hsi ’23 


Certificate: Applications of Computing 

PROJECT TITLE 

Impact of Grazing Regimes 

on Rangeland Quality and 

Wildlife and Livestock Use 








MENTOR(S) 





Biology 

I studied the interaction between zebras and 

cattle at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. 

Identifying the effects of cattle on the behavior 

of plains and Grévy’s zebras during this past 

summer’s drought can help efforts to reduce 

human-wildlife conflict within the context of 

climate change. I created heat maps showing the 

locations and movements of zebras and cattle 

using the software QGIS. These maps were then 

given to herders to guide where they moved their 

cattle. Additionally, I used Wildbook, a software 

that recognizes individual zebras by their stripes, 

to process photos and field data. This allowed 

me to create home ranges for several Grévy’s 

zebras, which helped us understand differences 

in their behavior and reactions to cattle. I gained 

a deeper understanding of zebra behavior — from 

mating systems to water dependency — and the 

importance of sustainable livestock ranching. I 

also gained skills in processing and analyzing 

large data sets using R code and computer 

software. This internship gave me an invaluable 

skill set that will help me as I continue studying 

ecology and sustainability. 

CONSERVATION 


41

Eva Jordan ’24 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 


Conservation at New York 

City Parks 





(NYC Parks) 

LOCATION(S) 


MENTOR(S) 

Georgina Cullman, 

Ecologist, NYC Parks 

I worked with the New York City Department 

of Parks and Recreation’s Natural Resources 

Group (NRG) to conduct an ongoing wildlifemonitoring 

project that is assessing the habitat 

and hydrological connectivity within two salt 

marshes bisected by roads. This study will 

continue in the coming years after these roads 

have been reconstructed with environmentally 

minded features such as culverts and 

ecopassages. Monitoring before and after 

reconstruction will allow the NRG to assess the 

efficacy of these technologies in mitigating the 

impacts of the built environment on nature, 

and provide evidence to support this type of 

reconstruction in the future. I spent most of 

my time conducting fieldwork, which included 

setting and retrieving traps, marking and 

measuring diamondback terrapins and minnows, 

and gaining hands-on experience in saltmarsh 

ecosystems. I also worked with the management 

and analysis of our mark-recapture data. This 

internship was a valuable opportunity for me 

to become more familiar with conservation 

work through government organizations and 

to solidify my interest in pursuing ecological 

fieldwork. It also allowed me to further explore 

the intersection of ecology and engineering, 

which I hope to apply to my future independent 

research. 

42

Megan Leinenbach ’23 


Certificate: Global Health and Health Policy 

PROJECT TITLE 

Plant Ecology and 

Ecosystem Health 


U.S. Department of 

Agriculture (USDA) 

Forest Service Southern 


MENTOR(S) 

Timothy Bowden, Owner, 

Bowden Brothers LLC 

I worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture 

(USDA) Forest Service Southern Research 

Station to build out the CompassLive website 

that the communications team uses to post 

popular-science articles about the research and 

accomplishments of Forest Service scientists. 

My daily activities included reading new 

scientific publications, interviewing scientists, 

drafting and editing articles, and composing 

social media posts about publications. These 

tasks improved my ability to understand and 

translate science so that technical concepts and 

data can be understood by a general reader. This 

internship built skills that are essential in any 

communications-driven career beyond science 

writing, from entrepreneurship to health care. 

With these skills, I can now freely communicate 

with scientists and help them understand how 

their work applies to broader audiences. 

CONSERVATION 


43

Marissa Mejia ’23 

PSYCHOLOGY 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Ka Honua Momona 

International 



International 

LOCATION(S) 

Molokai, Hawaii 

MENTOR(S) 

Tiani Puaa Kawaauhu- 

Cook, Executive Director, 


International 

I had the incredible opportunity to work with Ka 

Honua Momona (KHM) International, a Native 

Hawaiian environmental conservation nonprofit. 

I contributed to the organization’s mission of 

being a model for sustainability — “mauka a 

makai” (“from the mountains to the sea”) — 

by engaging in hands-on conservation work. 

I was involved in the preservation of ancient 

Hawaiian fishponds, monitoring the island’s 

coral reef and limu (seaweed) populations, 

planting hundreds of native-plant seedlings, 

and aiding in the removal of thousands of 

pounds of invasive species. I also redesigned the 

organization’s website to improve its aesthetics 

and make it more user-friendly; spearheaded 

the creation of the Āhā’ilono (KHM’s monthly 

newsletter); and directed, filmed and produced 

“‘Ike Kūhohonu,” a documentary featuring the 

island’s “kupuna” (elders) and their insight on 

Hawaiian fishponds. This experience taught me 

about Native Hawaiian cultures and ecosystems, 

showed me how empowering it can be to live 

in a space inhabited by people who look like 

me, solidified my desire to pursue a career in 

environmentalism, and shifted my perspective 

on conservation to incorporate more holistic 

and sustainable approaches created by Native 

Hawaiians. 

44

Joyce Mo ’24 

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING 

PROJECT TITLE 


International 



International 

LOCATION(S) 

Molokai, Hawaii 

MENTOR(S) 

Tiani Puaa Kawaauhu- 

Cook, Executive Director, 


International 

I worked in Hawaii with Ka Honua Momona 

International, a nonprofit based in Molokai, 

Hawaii, that seeks to be a model of sustainability, 

or “mauka a makai” (“from the mountains to the 

sea”). My project focused on fishpond restoration, 

specifically removing invasive mangroves 

and the seaweed gorilla ogo, and testing water 

quality for salinity, temperature, turbidity and 

dissolved oxygen levels. Ka Honua Momona 

also seeks to perpetuate traditional Hawaiian 

knowledge through five core values inspired by 

our “kupuna,” or wise elder. I created a series 

of botanical illustrations of native Hawaiian 

plants with descriptions of the plants’ cultural 

significance with their Hawaiian, common and 

scientific names. I also listened to stories from a 

kupuna, learned ocean and coral reef monitoring 

skills from a kupuna known for sustainable 

ocean practices, and planted native plants with 

a kupuna known for his homestead farmland 

and environmental stewardship. As a result of 

my time in Molokai, I am more aware of, and 

intend to keep a more open mind to, different 

perspectives and aspects of sustainability. 

CONSERVATION 


45

Jahir Morris ’24 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 


Conservation at NYC Parks 





(NYC Parks) 

LOCATION(S) 


MENTOR(S) 

Heather Platt, Ecological 

Restoration Project 

Assistant, NYC Parks; 

Jamie Ong, Environmental 

Protection Project 

Manager, NYC Parks 

I worked as a member of the wetlands team 

monitoring populations of diadromous fish — 

which are species that spend portions of their 

life cycle both in freshwater and at sea — in 

the Bronx River. The goal of the Diadromous 

Fish Restoration Project is to minimize the 

obstructive effects that dams along the Bronx 

River have on the upstream migration of river 

herring and American eels through the use of a 

fish passage and eel ladder at the 182nd Street 

Dam. I worked on site collecting anatomical 

data on captured American eels, temperature 

values at several points, and additional notes 

on the overall functionality of the equipment. 

Off site, I reviewed video footage from within 

the fish passage to help compile a record of the 

number, species and frequency of fish using the 

passage to scale the dam. Ideally, these data will 

be used to provide insight into the effectiveness 

of mitigation strategies, such as fish passages 

and eel ladders, in restoring migration activity at 

dam construction sites. 

46

Matthew Pickering ’24 

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS 

Certificates: Humanistic Studies, Environmental 

Studies, History and the Practice of Diplomacy 

PROJECT TITLE 

Million Tree Project 



MENTOR(S) 

Xian Liu, Million Tree 

Project Director, Shanghai 

Roots & Shoots 

The goal of the Million Tree Project (MTP), 

an initiative of Shanghai Roots & Shoots, is to 

combat desertification and habitat degradation 

in China through specialized tree planting. 

While I worked on a variety of projects, I mainly 

focused on the marketing side, i.e., appealing to 

our corporate and school sponsors. For instance, 

I learned to use the software ArcGIS to plot a 

visually attractive map of our forest sites. I also 

helped create posters about MTP’s work for 

schools and used the application StoryMaps to 

update our learning guide. In addition, I delved 

into website development, using SXL.com to 

overhaul and streamline the MTP website. I 

found it intriguing how much of the work done by 

nongovernmental organizations revolves around 

fundraising so that they’re able to do the actual 

work — in this case, the planting of millions 

of trees. I appreciated that this internship 

combined my two potential career tracks of 

policy related to China or the environment, 

and my work solidified my interest in pursuing 

a degree in one of those policy areas from the 

Princeton School of Public and International 

Affairs. 

CONSERVATION 


47

Sophia Richter ’23 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Estimating the Recovery 

Potential of Threatened 

Species 


Center for Policy 

Research on Energy 

and the Environment 

(C-PREE), School of Public 

and International Affairs, 


MENTOR(S) 

David Wilcove, Professor 

of Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology and 

Public Affairs and the 

High Meadows 


Rebecca Senior, 


Associate, Princeton 

School of Public and 

International Affairs and 

C-PREE 

My project focused on identifying the remaining 

habitat of threatened animal species to gauge 

the need for conservation action before these 

animals are extinct. My mentor used fineresolution 

satellite mapping to identify the 

area of habitat (AOH) within a species’ range 

that matches their required habitat conditions. 

Using these AOH data, I identified 2,488 species 

with too little habitat remaining to recover 

without ecosystem restoration. A small habitat 

area can increase the risk of extinction. I also 

conducted a pattern analysis among species 

with a small AOH to identify the countries and 

regions in which they occur. We can use this 

information to identify the species and regions 

for which habitat restoration and conservation 

will be the most impactful. After conducting my 

data analysis, I contributed to a manuscript on 

these findings that will be submitted to a peerreviewed 

journal. I learned about how species are 

classified by their risk of extinction and how to 

help endangered species. I also gained technical 

skills by working with spatial data and improved 

my scientific writing skills. I hope to continue 

with independent research on conservation, and 

I have also begun to think more seriously about 

research as a career. 

48

Zachary Sahin ’23 

ENGLISH 

Certificates: American Studies, Near Eastern 

Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 

The Impact of Large 

Mammalian Herbivores on 

Small Invertebrates: A 

Literature Review 


Pringle Lab, Department 


Evolutionary Biology, 


MENTOR(S) 

Robert Pringle, Professor 


Evolutionary Biology; Joel 

Abraham, Ph.D. 

candidate, Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology; 

Finote Gijsman, Ph.D. 


Evolutionary Biology; Erin 

Phillips, Ph.D. candidate, 


Biology 

My internship aimed to provide a better 

understanding of ecological communities as 

part of the ongoing effort to restore Gorongosa 

National Park in Mozambique, while also 

inspiring a love for the greater study of ecology. I 

conducted a literature review and meta-analysis 

of more than 20 years of research related to 

the impact of large mammalian herbivores 

on small invertebrates, one of many topics I 

discussed with my advisers before the start of 

the internship. The review involved reading 

and retrieving relevant data and information 

from 3,678 papers published on this topic, 

which I retrieved from the Web of Science 

databank through a search cue devised by my 

advisers. Through my internship, I enhanced 

my ecological knowledge, gained a newfound 

love and appreciation for many of the topics 

I researched, and am now fully capable of 

engaging in a meta-analysis of my own. I can 

conduct a large-scale research project that 

involves compiling and connecting 20 years 

worth of data into a succinct high-level report — 

a valuable skill in any field. 

CONSERVATION 



and the Environment Challenge project, “Causes 

and Consequences of Water-Mediated Pattern 

Formation in Arid African Rangelands.” 

49

Sam Vasen ’23 


CONSERVATION 


PROJECT TITLE 

Reserve and Forest 

Stewardship Internship 


The Watershed Institute 

LOCATION(S) 


MENTOR(S) 

Steve Tuorto, Director of 

Science and Stewardship, 

The Watershed Institute; 

Erin Stretz, Assistant 

Director of Science and 

Stewardship, The 

Watershed Institute; 

Allison Jackson, 

Stewardship Coordinator, 


My internship focused on the stewardship and 

management of the 950-acre property that 

constitutes The Watershed Institute, a land 

and water conservation organization in New 

Jersey. Guided by Stewardship Coordinator 

Allison Jackson, I worked to foster and promote 

healthy native ecosystems across the property. 

We met this goal in many different ways: tree 

planting, invasive-species removal, building a 

habitat for native birds, protecting vegetation 

from excess herbivory, promoting stewardship to 

the public, and monitoring plant growth across 

different ecosystem types. The vast majority 

of the work was done in the field, but we also 

spent time doing research on plant species and 

compiling literature to educate the public about 

stewardship practices during The Watershed 

Institute’s annual Butterfly Festival. I gained 

valuable skills in plant identification and 

ecosystem management, as well as important 

fieldwork experience. This organization and 

internship opened my eyes to many different 

aspects of important environmental work that I 

will continue to pursue. 

50

Kevin Zhang ’24 

UNDECLARED 

PROJECT TITLE 

Reserve and Forest 

Stewardship Internship 



LOCATION(S) 


MENTOR(S) 







Watershed Institute; 

Allison Jackson, 

Stewardship Coordinator, 


The main goal of my internship was to assist 

with property maintenance at The Watershed 

Institute. I gained significant experience 

identifying and clearing invasive plants along the 

main trail on the property, along with planting 

trees and maintaining tree tubes. I also assisted 

with collecting data and monitoring the impact 

of deer on native plants, including monitoring 

young saplings as a measure of forest health, 

both in the forest and within deer exclosures. 

Additionally, I helped run the stewardship stand 

at The Watershed Institute’s annual Butterfly 

Festival. We provided information to the public 

on the impact of deer and invasive species in the 

region, and shared informational documents we 

created on invasive plant identification and local 

native-plant nurseries. Overall, this internship 

was a very rewarding opportunity for me to gain 

hands-on experience in, and knowledge about, 

environmental work, and it greatly raised my 

interest in a career in conservation. 

CONSERVATION 


51

Jack Anderson ’23 

ECONOMICS 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

POLICY AND SOCIETY 

PROJECT TITLE 

Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission, Office of 

Energy Market Regulation 


Office of Electric 

Reliability, Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission 

(FERC) 

MENTOR(S) 

David Ortiz, Deputy 

Director, Office of Electric 

Reliability, FERC; Nicole 

Businelli ’13, Energy 

Industry Analyst, FERC 

I was an intern in the East Division of the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s 

Office of Energy Market Regulation (OEMR). 

FERC is an independent federal agency tasked 

with regulating the interstate transmission of 

electricity, natural gas and oil. The East Divison 

of OEMR advises FERC on economic regulation of 

the electric utility industry in the eastern United 

States. My work included evaluating requests for 

electric rate and tariff changes from stakeholders 

in eastern energy markets — such as generators, 

distribution utilities, and regional transmission 

organizations/independent system operators 

(RTOs/ISOs) — and drafted response orders to be 

issued by FERC. I also worked alongside FERC’s 

compliance team for Order No. 2222, a landmark 

order issued in September 2020 that required 

RTOs/ISOs to establish market rules allowing 

distributed energy resources to participate in 

wholesale electricity markets. My work over 

the summer was a great learning experience, 

allowing me to experience firsthand the 

complexities of energy markets and work within 

a federal agency. 

52

Manyu Banerjee ’23 

ECONOMICS 

Certificates: Finance, Statistics and Machine 

Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Anomalous Weather and 

Business Activity 








MENTOR(S) 

Michael Oppenheimer, 

Albert G. Milbank 


and International Affairs 

and the High Meadows 


Elmira Kalhor, 




International Affairs 

I worked on a project to determine the economic 

effects of hurricanes using measures of 

business activity around the time of Hurricane 

Harvey. My mentor Elmira Kalhor intends 

to analyze these data using a difference in 

differences (DiD) regression with a synthetic 

control (i.e., comparing economic trends in 

Harvey-affected regions against a control 

group of regions not affected). I assisted her by 

formulating a regression model that found the 

effect of anomalous weather on different types 

of businesses, which is necessary to justify 

assumptions for the DiD model. I used a fixed 

effects regression model that took advantage 

of the data set's multiple observations across 

time to produce an unbiased estimate of the 

effect of anomalous weather on different 

business types. This internship showed me how 

economic concepts and tools could be applied 

creatively to other fields such as the study of 

climate change. It also provided me with an 

invaluable opportunity to formulate a model 

while considering potential sources of bias and 

acknowledging practical limitations. This project 

inspired me to continue research that helps 

inform public policy without limiting myself to 

traditionally economic spheres. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


53

Nicabec Casido ’23 

NEUROSCIENCE 

Certificate: Linguistics 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 

Contextualizing Social 

Norms 


Behavioral Science for 

Policy Lab, Princeton 

University 

MENTOR(S) 

Elke Weber, Gerhard R. 

Andlinger Professor in 

Energy and the 

Environment, Professor of 

Psychology and Public 

Affairs; Johanna Matt- 

Navarro, Research Lab 

Manager, Andlinger 

Center for Energy and the 

Environment; Gregg 

Sparkman, Postdoctoral 


Andlinger Center for 


Environment 

I contributed to several focused meta-analysis 

projects during my internship. Two of these 

meta-analyses focused on the applicability 

of in-lab research to the real world by looking 

at the relationship between environmental 

behaviors, risky behavior, and how a person plays 

economic games in laboratory experiments. The 

meta-analysis I primarily focused on examined 

when people are most influenced by social 

norms — our understanding of what others most 

commonly do or believe. Our analysis of studies 

on this topic consisted of defining the context, 

norm messages and who delivered the messages, 

as well as creating a digital library of the many 

studies found. Once our papers were analyzed, 

we created data visualizations of the variety of 

study content (including the types of social-norm 

manipulations used and the populations studied) 

using PowerPoint and the statistical software R. 

The diversity of projects I collaborated on was a 

wonderful experience that helped influence my 

perspective on social psychology and my career 

interests moving forward. 

* This internship is connected to the HMEI Urban 

Challenge project, “Norm Dynamics as Agents 

of Urban Social Change and Environmental 

Sustainability: Investigating Cross-Cultural 

Differences and Longevity of Intervention.” 

54

Calif Chen ’23 


AFFAIRS 


PROJECT TITLE 

Corporate Climates 

Project 




University 

MENTOR(S) 






Affairs; Jordana 

Composto, Ph.D. 

candidate, Psychology; 

Pooja Vijay Ramamurthi, 


Princeton School of Public 


My internship involved working on two projects: 

India’s Coal Transitions and Corporate Climates. 

The goal of the India’s Coal Transitions project is 

to identify and examine India’s policy network. 

I conducted data cleaning for stakeholder 

interviews, coded a node list and edge list of 

actor interactions for social network analysis, 

and assisted in developing research methods 

to identify consistent themes within the 

stakeholder interviews. The second project I 

worked on is Corporate Climates. The goal of my 

work within the project was to study the effects 

of company sustainability commitments and 

statements of varying narratives. Specifically, 

we wanted to examine how effective specific 

versus vague statements are in galvanizing 

stakeholders. I conducted a broad literature 

review of research on framing narratives 

and corporate statements. At the end of my 

internship, I compiled an overview of the 

literature, a list of dimensions commonly studied 

for messaging, and a list of commonly studied 

outcome variables. Overall, I gained a deeper 

understanding of the process behind developing 

research methods and the skills to conduct a 

literature review. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 







55

Samuel Cryan ’22 

GEOSCIENCES 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 

Coastal Zone Management 

and National Estuarine 

Research Reserve System 


National Oceanographic 

and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA) 

MENTOR(S) 

Erica Seiden, Program 

Manager, NOAA 

I worked with the National Estuarine Research 

Reserve System to analyze the different estuarine 

(areas where rivers meet the sea) nature reserves 

and determine how resilient the reserves will 

be in the face of climate change and rising sea 

levels. I looked at specific features of each reserve 

such as erodibility and the percentage of area 

below higher high water (the highest high tide) 

to determine risk and identify ways to reduce 

it. I also conducted greenhouse gas audits and 

worked on getting some of the sites designated 

as internationally important by the Ramsar 

Convention on Wetlands treaty. I learned a lot 

about coastal management practices to better 

protect estuaries, as well as how to work with 

geographic information system (GIS) mapping. 

I also gained a lot of insight into the structure 

of NOAA and the many important projects they 

work on. I loved the experience and hope to 

continue studying coastal management. 

56

Sierra Gonzales ’22 

PSYCHOLOGY 

PROJECT TITLE 

Contextualizing Social 

Norms 




University 

MENTOR(S) 






Affairs; Johanna Matt- 

Navarro, Research Lab 

Manager, Andlinger 


Environment; Gregg 

Sparkman, Postdoctoral 




Environment 

I studied how social norms in interventions 

can be effective for change. A social norm is 

a perception of what others commonly do or 

believe in a given context. Previous research 

has conducted experimental work in different 

content areas to test the effectiveness of specific 

phrasing. I focused on reading those research 

papers and categorizing them into different 

types of mediums, or ways to implement the 

norm message, as well as confirming previous 

coders’ interpretations about whether the study 

should remain in our meta-analysis. The most 

interesting part of this work was being exposed 

to the wide variety of social-norm research, as 

well as discovering areas that still need more 

exploration. For this reason, I plan to conduct an 

experiment for my senior thesis in which I will 

use a social-norm intervention to try to reduce 

body-dysmorphic thoughts and actions, as my 

previous research has been on eating disorders. 

This internship was incredibly rewarding and 

helpful in improving my research abilities and 

discipline. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 







57

Sloan Huebner ’23 

SOCIOLOGY 

Certificate: American Studies 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 

Trade-offs in Individual/ 

Collective Behavior in 

Response to COVID-19 and 

in Anticipation of Climate 

Change 


Levin Lab, Department of 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Simon Levin, James S. 

McDonnell Distinguished 

University Professor in 


Biology; Elke Weber, 

Gerhard R. Andlinger 

Professor in Energy and the 



Affairs; Sara Constantino, 


Associate, Princeton School 

of Public and International 

Affairs and the Program in 

Science, Technology and 

Environmental Policy, and 

Lecturer in the High 


Institute; Elisabeth Krueger, 


Associate and Lecturer, 

High Meadows 

Environmental Institute 

I examined how residents of New York City 

perceive short-, medium- and long-term risks, 

and how those perceptions align with the 

priorities of the city’s governance structure. The 

COVID-19 pandemic provides a particularly apt 

context in which to study the effect of a crisis in 

an urban environment on people’s perceptions 

of climate change, which may seem like a longterm 

issue despite the reality. I coded a survey 

using the software Qualtrics for distribution to 

selected populations via flyer distribution and 

Facebook recruitment. I compiled a catalog of 

pertinent local and regional governance actors, 

including municipal government officials, 

academics, nonprofit organizers, corporate 

actors, and state government officials. I also 

pulled relevant academic literature for a review 

on social-norm formation, mediating governance 

institutions and social change, and governance 

and power embeddedness. I enjoyed getting my 

first work experience in a research lab setting, 

and I acquired skills for creating surveys and 

conducting literature reviews that have prepared 

me for my independent work and graduate 

research. I hope to continue the research I 

conducted on social-norm and belief formation 

in my future research. 

58

Tanéyah Jolly ’24 

SOCIOLOGY 

Certificates: African American Studies, Gender 

and Sexuality Studies, Theater 

PROJECT TITLE 

New York Lawyers for the 

Public Interest 


New York Lawyers for the 

Public Interest (NYLPI) 

MENTOR(S) 

Hayley Gorenberg, Legal 

Director, NYLPI 

I worked with New York Lawyers for the Public 

Interest on an environmental justice campaign 

in response to NRG Energy’s proposal to build 

a new fossil fuel plant in Queens, New York. 

The campaign was initiated by the PEAK 

Coalition, which consists of environmental 

justice organizations in New York that focused 

on people of color. I attended weekly PEAK 

meetings, researched information about 

investing practices, and created a social media 

campaign for people to write letters to the 

New York State Department of Environmental 

Conservation. I developed skills in coalition work 

and community outreach, and I learned the ways 

in which community organizations can support 

each other to better serve their communities. 

In a more academic tone, I learned about 

organizing practices called the Jemez Principles, 

which I will carry into many other aspects of 

my life. This was a great opportunity for me to 

learn more about myself and develop skills in 

community organizing and coalition building. I 

now have more clarity on how I want to include 

environmental justice in my studies and analyses 

of social systems and inequities. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


59

Katie Kolodner ’24 

OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND FINANCIAL 

ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Applications of Computing, Statistics 

and Machine Learning 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 

Local Damages From 

Hurricanes: Application of 

Machine Learning With 

Satellite Data 








MENTOR(S) 







Rachel Young, Ph.D. 

candidate, Princeton 



Estimates of the damages caused by natural 

disasters are a source of growing debate and 

uncertainty as the frequency and intensity of 

disasters increase due to climate change. Local 

economic and political conditions can influence 

the quality of self-reported damage estimates 

and skew estimates of a disaster’s impact. To help 

correct for this data limitation, I constructed a 

novel data set of building-level damages using 

satellite images of communities impacted by 

hurricanes, and I developed supervised machine 

learning methods. This new source of damage 

data will allow researchers and policymakers to 

better identify impacted households in order to 

evaluate the effectiveness of disaster relief and 

determine how disasters impact local economic 

conditions. I gained a broader understanding 

of the importance of computer science and 

economics in understanding the urban impacts 

of climate change through my research, and I 

hope to continue utilizing machine learning and 

data analysis for beneficial global change. 

60

Kenzo Lacuarta ’22 



PROJECT TITLE 





Change 





University 

MENTOR(S) 






















High Meadows 


I studied multilevel governance within New 

York City and looked at existing models of 

governance that could inform policymaking. 

More specifically, my goal was to understand 

how access to health care could be increased 

by modeling the dynamic relationship between 

public and private health insurers and uninsured 

individuals. This was done using the software 

Python to simulate a three-player game that 

incorporated evolutionary game theory and 

a payoff matrix. I later conducted a literature 

review of other studies and their impacts on 

policy decision-making. I improved my coding 

skills, but also learned how ecological models 

could be used for a wide range of interactions 

between individuals and groups. With the help 

of my mentors and adviser, I hope to use my 

preliminary model as a foundation for my senior 

thesis. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


61

Jonathan Lin ’24 

ECONOMICS 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 





Change 





University 

MENTOR(S) 






















High Meadows 


My project explored how physical location and 

socioeconomic factors affect risk perceptions 

and attitudes related to climate change impacts 

and policy. This project involved distributing a 

household survey on climate change attitudes 

to key neighborhoods in New York City. I 

worked with geographic information systems 

(GIS) to identify target neighborhoods, then 

used a software called QGIS to map data from 

a previous study that quantified climate risk 

across the city. That survey measured different 

areas’ physical risk from climate change, as 

well as their level of susceptibility based on how 

difficult it would be to endure and recover from 

harmful climate impacts. I was able to determine 

specific Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs) 

that fit into four different key categories: high 

hazard-high susceptibility; high hazard-low 

susceptibility; low hazard-high susceptibility; 

and low hazard-low susceptibility. I helped 

sample the identified neighborhoods by traveling 

to New York to distribute flyers for our survey, 

as well as engaging residents through social 

media advertising. In addition to gaining a better 

understanding and appreciation of the processes 

involved in academic research, I enjoyed learning 

GIS and creating useful visual representations of 

complicated data. My experience heightened my 

interest in conducting research related to social 

sciences and policy. 

62

Tanvi Nibhanupudi ’23 

ECONOMICS 

Certificates: Journalism, Finance 

PROJECT TITLE 

Corporate Climates 




University 

MENTOR(S) 











the Program in Science, 

Technology and 




Institute; Jordana 


candidate, Psychology; 

Melissa Tier, Ph.D. 

candidate, Princeton 



I investigated individual and institutional 

climate change awareness and action through 

surveys of individual perspectives on COVID-19 

and climate change, as well as data on financial 

institutions’ environmental, social and 

governance (ESG) performance. Our goal was to 

produce a behaviorally informed understanding 

of the cognitive and social mechanisms that 

influence personal and institutional action 

on COVID-19 and climate change. These 

analyses will help inform stronger corporate 

and government policies by providing greater 

knowledge of the ways in which individuals, 

institutions and government bodies connect and 

interact to effect change. In these projects, I used 

the programming language R to compile data and 

extract trends for global financial actors across 

financial and ESG metrics, as well as examine 

the influence of perceptions of government 

COVID-19 and climate change action on personal 

action and trust in institutions. Overall, this 

experience gave me invaluable skills in cleaning 

and analyzing data sets that have real-world 

impact and inspired me to continue this work 

by adopting a more data-driven and behavioral 

focus in my economics concentration. This 

internship was an incredible opportunity for me 

to shape my own research, and I hope to continue 

this in my future independent work. 






ENVIRONMENTAL 


63

Nicole Svensson ’24 


ENGINEERING 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


PROJECT TITLE 

Inequality, Economic 

Precarity, and Disruptive 

Events 




University 

MENTOR(S) 
















Institute 

I studied how the onset of COVID-19 shaped 

peoples’ preferences for a universal basic income 

(UBI). I analyzed a survey conducted by the 

Behavioral Science for Policy Lab (BSPL) across 

China, Italy and the United States. A portion 

of the survey requested that respondents 

numerically rate their support for a UBI. My 

analysis determined that COVID-19 increased 

support for a UBI in Italy and the United States, 

but decreased support for a UBI in China. I also 

studied the factors that may have affected this, 

such as race, income, education, gender and 

political affiliation. I thoroughly researched 

each of the respective countries’ social safety 

nets as context for possible explanations for the 

change in support. I was able to build upon my 

data analysis skills by learning the programming 

language R. I had not used R much before, but 

I became much more comfortable with it as 

a result of my project. Additionally, I learned 

how to thoughtfully write research papers and 

enumerate my findings in a concise manner. I 

enjoyed my time working in the laboratory and I 

thank BSPL for this opportunity. 

64

Mayu Takeuchi ’23 


AFFAIRS 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Values and 

Public Life, Statistics and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Climate Policy Advocacy: 

With Equity in Research, 

Policy and Practice 


Environmental Defense 

Fund (EDF) 

MENTOR(S) 

Katelyn Roedner Sutter, 

Senior Manager, U.S. 

Climate, Environmental 

Defense Fund; Katie 

Schneer, High Meadows 

Fellow, EDF 

I worked with the Environmental Defense Fund 

(EDF) on climate policy research and advocacy 

in California and Washington. The California Air 

Resources Board (CARB) is currently developing 

the 2022 Scoping Plan, California’s roadmap 

for achieving its climate goals. As part of this 

process, I advocated for EDF’s priorities of: 

raising climate ambition, including through 

tighter emissions caps in the cap-and-trade 

program; maximizing near-term emissions 

reductions; and ensuring equitable processes and 

outcomes for communities disproportionately 

impacted by pollution. I coordinated public 

comments submitted to CARB, co-authored an 

EDF blog post, and developed memos on climate 

investments in communities. For Washington, 

I contributed to advocacy surrounding the new 

Climate Commitment Act, delving into policy 

and political differences between the states. 

Additionally, I led the development of a literature 

review of the effects of emissions trading systems 

(ETSs) on local air pollution, and I identified 

key benefits, harms and risks of ETSs, as well 

as ideas for policies to mitigate those risks and 

harms. Overall, I realized the importance of 

relationships — and who is at the table — in 

determining what policies get made and put 

into action. I am eager to continue working in 

the climate policy space, especially with the 

communities most impacted. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


65

Darin Avila ’23 


ENGINEERING 

Certificate: Applied and Computational 

Mathematics 

HUMAN HEALTH 

PROJECT TITLE 

Air Quality Modeling and 

Environmental Justice 


Marshall Research 



Engineering, University of 

Washington 

MENTOR(S) 

Julian Marshall, John R. 

Kiely Endowed Professor, 



Washington 

The Marshall Research Group fights for 

environmental justice using both mechanistic 

models and empirical data to model the effects of 

air pollution across the country. This internship 

allowed me to improve my skills working with 

geographical data, outlining functions for 

complex tasks, and optimizing algorithms that 

work with millions of data points. I helped 

create a suite of functions that could quickly 

communicate with the group’s air-pollution 

model to perform certain tasks, then I applied 

these functions to a project that would shed light 

on an issue in environmental justice. We decided 

to look at a sample of facilities defined by the 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as power 

plants and assigned each an environmental 

justice score based on how its emissions affect 

minority communities’ exposure to pollutants 

relative to the general population. After 

reworking our code for further efficiency, we were 

left with a body of data that allowed us to glean 

important environmental justice insights about 

the power plants in question. 

66

Joshua Ku ’22 


PROJECT TITLE 

Mucormycosis Burden 

Survey 


Center for Disease 

Dynamics, Economics and 

Policy (CDDEP) 

MENTOR(S) 

Ramanan Laxminarayan, 

Senior Research Scholar, 

High Meadows 

Environmental Institute, 

Princeton University; 

Ruchita Balasubramanian 

’19, CDDEP 

Mucormycosis is an opportunistic fungal 

infection with a high mortality rate. My project 

focused on creating a map of the mucormycosis 

burden (infections) on a global scale using 

existing literature as data. I performed a 

literature review on the search engines PubMed 

and Google Scholar, then mapped mucormycosis 

burden using the software QGIS. Throughout 

my internship, the most interesting thing to 

me was reading through the case reports. Each 

one painted a distinct picture of a different 

patient with mucormycosis. There were stories of 

mucormycosis being discovered and addressed in 

time, and of when it failed to be addressed. Other 

cases were hospital-acquired infections where 

quick identifications were important. Reading 

through these personal stories helped strengthen 

my resolve to pursue a career based in health 

care. 

HUMAN HEALTH 

67

Rachel Kulchar ’23 

CHEMISTRY 


Materials Science and Engineering 

HUMAN HEALTH 

PROJECT TITLE 

Predicting Exposure of 

Children to Environmental 

Pollutants Using Their 

Deciduous Teeth 




Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 


of Geosciences 

The premise of this internship is that human 

exposure to the environmental milieu is a key 

factor in brain development. Because human 

brain development is more than 80% complete 

by the age of 3, assessing children’s exposure 

to environmental toxins in their early years 

is central to understanding the neurological 

development of children living in regions where 

water is highly polluted. While blood analysis has 

been used to assess a child's recent exposure to 

toxins, deciduous teeth (baby teeth) can indicate 

long-term exposure levels. Organic contaminants 

such as insecticides and antibiotics can become 

part of the tooth’s dentin and remain in the 

intergranular spaces of apatite, which is the 

primary component of tooth enamel and bone 

mineral. Slow and long-term exposure to low 

levels of water contamination is more common 

in the world, and this study can provide valuable 

clues where commonly used blood analysis fails. 

68

Chirag Kumar ’23 

CHEMISTRY 



PROJECT TITLE 

Mitigating Neonatal 

Mortality: Estimates of 

Vaccine-Avertable 

Neonatal Sepsis and 

Antimicrobial Resistance 


Center for Disease 

Dynamics, Economics and 

Policy 

MENTOR(S) 

Ramanan Laxminarayan, 

Senior Research Scholar, 

High Meadows 

Environmental Institute, 


Bacterial sepsis is a leading cause of neonatal 

mortality. Sepsis is caused by a dysregulated 

host response to a bacterial infection and is 

commonly associated with pathogens that 

exhibit high degrees of antibiotic resistance. 

There is a critical need to introduce measures 

that can mitigate sepsis and, therefore, reduce 

neonatal mortality, which is useful toward 

reaching various U.N. Sustainable Development 

Goals. Cohort studies have been done in various 

low- and middle-income countries where the 

burden of neonatal sepsis is often worst to 

characterize neonatal sepsis. Nevertheless, there 

remain critical questions in identifying and 

estimating the actual burden of neonatal sepsis 

by pathogen and antimicrobial resistance, and in 

determining the impact a potential vaccine may 

have in mitigating neonatal sepsis. I developed 

a Monte Carlo-inspired model to combine data 

from various cohort studies in order to estimate 

the incidence of neonatal sepsis by pathogen 

across countries and World Health Organization 

(WHO) regions. I then used WHO data of 

neonatal mortality and drew inspiration from 

the maternal tetanus-vaccination campaign to 

evaluate the number of neonatal sepsis deaths 

that could be prevented should a vaccine for 

various pathogens be developed and distributed 

with propagated uncertainty. 

HUMAN HEALTH 

69

Heather Madsen ’24 


Certificate: Archaeology, Environmental Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 

Religious Environments in 

Roman Britain 


Kay Research Group, 

Department of Art and 

Archaeology, Princeton 

University 

Through my internship, I gleaned a background 

in ancient Roman archaeology and culture. 

We began by reading work on Roman Britain 

by British archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse- 

Green so as to establish a foundation of religious 

and funerary practices and customs. We then 

proceeded to categorize religious sites mined 

from the text, supplementing them with more 

found online. Once we had a large base of data 

in the online database Airtable, we embarked 

on independent research. I studied the health 

implications of Rome’s dependency on lead in 

Britain and, in particular, how water and aquatic 

cults intensified the epidemic of lead poisoning 

in the ancient world. 

HUMAN HEALTH 

MENTOR(S) 

Janet Kay, Associate 

Research Scholar, Art and 

Archaeology 

70

Katie McLaughlin ’23 


Certificate: Statistics and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Air Quality Modeling and 

Environmental Justice 


Marshall Research 




Washington 

MENTOR(S) 

Julian Marshall, John R. 

Kiely Endowed Professor, 



Washington 

I had the opportunity to study air pollution in 

the United States and how exposure correlates 

with demographics. I collaborated with two other 

Princeton students to answer environmental 

justice (EJ) questions using data from an InMap 

Source-Receptor Matrix (ISRM), a tool that can 

predict a change in PM 2.5 

pollution at a receptor 

location due to a change in source emissions. 

Our goals were to make the ISRM calculations 

accessible and understandable, and to assign an 

EJ score to power plants across the United States. 

We first thoroughly documented a local setup 

and functions guide that future researchers 

can use to gain an understanding of the ISRM 

and its potential. After completing the basic 

groundwork, we used the ISRM to evaluate 

the emissions each power plant produces 

and analyzed the effects on different ethnic 

groups, exposing a need for policy and action. 

Through this work, I learned a lot about our 

country’s history of environmental and racial 

injustice. I gained great insight into the process 

of engineering research, and I am inspired to 

use my technical background to address similar 

social and environmental issues. 

HUMAN HEALTH 

71

Srija Patcha ’23 


HUMAN HEALTH 

PROJECT TITLE 

Effect of COVID-19 

Lockdowns on Air Quality 

in Delhi, India 








MENTOR(S) 

Denise Mauzerall, 



Engineering and Public 

and International Affairs; 

Disha Sharma, 





C-PREE 

I analyzed spatiotemporal air quality data for 

Delhi, India, to identify trends in air pollution 

during India’s COVID-19 lockdowns. Delhi is one 

of the most polluted megacities in the world, 

exhibiting ambient concentrations of criteria 

pollutants that frequently exceed the National 

Ambient Air Quality Standards. However, during 

the government-mandated COVID-19 lockdowns 

in 2020 and 2021, multiple news outlets noted 

clearer skies and cleaner air throughout the city. 

I aimed to investigate this further by quantifying 

possible changes in Delhi’s air quality during the 

two lockdown periods. I downloaded time-series 

data from 39 continuous monitoring stations 

throughout Delhi from 2015 to 2021 (using 2015- 

19 data as a baseline) for five criteria pollutants: 

two forms of particulate matter (PM 10 

and PM 2.5 

), 

nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 

), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 

), and 

ozone (O 3 

). As the project progressed, I gained 

familiarity with Pandas, a data-specific library in 

the software Python, and learned to implement 

methods of spatiotemporal visualization. I 

also learned a lot about the network of air 

quality monitoring and management in 

India. This internship provided me invaluable 

exposure to the intersection of technology and 

environmental research, which I plan to continue 

pursuing in college and beyond. 

72

Madeleine Burns ’24 


PROJECT TITLE 

Applications of the 

Net-Zero America Project 


Climate Central 

MENTOR(S) 

Eric Larson, Senior 

Research Engineer, 



Environment, Princeton 

University; Shari Bell, 

Regional Director, Climate 

Central; Jennifer Brady, 

Manager, Analysis and 

Production, Climate 

Central 

I worked with Climate Central to research and 

analyze data on the shifts in employment that 

would result from a national transition to netzero 

carbon emissions. Starting with Princeton’s 

Net-Zero America (NZA) project, I conducted 

outside research and synthesized information 

from a wide range of sources, from projects 

similar to NZA in scale and granularity, to 

specific regional case studies. Taken together, 

the data provide a holistic overview of the impact 

of the net-zero transition on the labor market. 

While there will be significant job turnover, the 

transition would result in more high-quality 

jobs across the United States. Throughout 

this internship, I developed data analysis 

and visualization skills for programming in 

R software, and I improved my research and 

analysis skills. My experience with Climate 

Central gave me insight into how nonprofit 

groups can use relatable local issues such as 

employment to approach the public about global 

issues such as climate change. I found this 

intersection of data and public interaction to be 

fascinating, and it’s something I certainly hope 

to pursue further in my academic career, perhaps 

by taking classes in data application or public 

policy. 


73

Emilio Cano Renteria ’23 


Certificates: Sustainable Energy, Applications of 

Computing, Statistics and Machine Learning 


PROJECT TITLE 

Wind and Solar Technology 

for the WeatherPower Tool 


Climate Central 

MENTOR(S) 

Eric Larson, Senior 

Research Engineer, 




University; Jennifer 

Brady, Manager, Analysis 

and Production, Climate 

Central 

Climate Central’s online WeatherPower tool 

forecasts daily renewable-energy production in 

different counties, districts and states across the 

United States. It is useful for demonstrating the 

potential for sustainable electricity generation 

to interested or curious consumers. My focus 

was on, first, improving WeatherPower’s 

accuracy by updating its solar- and wind-energy 

capacity estimates for the whole country. With 

a better idea of how many solar panels and wind 

turbines exist, the tool is able to better forecast 

production on any given day. I then analyzed the 

forecasts that WeatherPower made in the past 

and identified trends in regional sustainableenergy 

generation. With nearly one year of stored 

daily generation estimates, I was able to see 

how electricity production behaves throughout 

the year and propose articles or reports that 

could be produced from these observations. To 

conduct this analysis, I learned how to use the 

programming language SQL and how to work 

with large relational databases. I also learned 

about the intricacies of the sustainable-energy 

industry, a field which I hope to enter after 

graduation. 

74

Joseph Feng ’22 


ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Robotics and Intelligent Systems, 

Engineering Physics 

PROJECT TITLE 

A Structured Risk 

Assessment of Net-zero 

Emissions Pathways 


Energy Systems Analysis 

Group, Andlinger Center 

for Energy and the 


University; Behavioral 

Science for Policy Lab, 


MENTOR(S) 

Chris Greig, Theodora D. 

’78 & William H. Walton III 

’74 Senior Research 

Scientist, Andlinger 


Environment; Richard 

Moss, Visiting Research 

Collaborator, Andlinger 


Environment 

Our research studied risks associated with 

American energy-transition programs intended 

to mitigate climate change. We applied a 

structured risk assessment framework to risks 

associated with different pathways to net-zero 

emissions that were laid out in the recently 

published Princeton Net-Zero America study. 

This framework enabled us to: identify, analyze 

and evaluate the execution, climate impact and 

complex risks of net-zero pathways; develop 

risk-reduction strategies in response; and 

draw parallels and distinctions between these 

pathways’ risk exposure and risk vulnerabilities. 

I learned to quantitatively assess risk using a 

structured framework that helped me evaluate 

the likelihood, consequence and severity of 

each risk. Working with a project as big as 

the American energy transition gave me an 

appreciation for not only how monumental 

climate change mitigation will be, but also how 

much effort and planning is necessary for any 

significant engineering project. 


75

Kenny Huang ’23 


ENGINEERING 


Optimization and Quantitative Decision Science, 



PROJECT TITLE 

Data Science Applications 

for Electric Reliability 


Office of Electric 

Reliability, Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission 

(FERC) 

MENTOR(S) 

David Ortiz, Deputy 

Director, Office of Electric 

Reliability, FERC 

I worked as a data science intern in the Federal 

Energy Regulatory Commission's Office of 

Electric Reliability (OER) supporting various 

data-related tasks that the team worked on. At 

a high level, OER oversees the development and 

enforcement of mandatory reliability standards 

for the electric power grid. During my internship, 

I completed projects in database curation, data 

analysis and task automation that directly helped 

OER’s day-to-day operations. While working 

on these projects, I learned about several of the 

different aspects of work in OER, as well as how 

to implement and use Python programminglanguage 

libraries such as SQLAlchemy, 

Selenium and Natural Language Toolkit. My 

greatest takeaway was an appreciation for what 

goes on behind the scenes to keep the electrical 

grid operating and the infrastructure that 

supports our daily lives running smoothly. 

This internship solidified for me that I’m still 

interested in data science as a career, likely 

within the realm of energy, and I’m looking 

forward to continuing that journey. 

76

Aaron Leung ’23 


ENGINEERING 

PROJECT TITLE 

A Structured Risk 

Assessment of Net-zero 

Emissions Pathways 


Energy Systems Analysis 

Group, Andlinger Center 



University; Behavioral 

Science for Policy Lab, 


MENTOR(S) 

Chris Greig, Theodora D. 

’78 & William H. Walton III 

’74 Senior Research 

Scientist, Andlinger 


Environment; Richard 

Moss, Visiting Research 

Collaborator, Andlinger 


Environment 

Our project aims to develop energy-transition 

risk management measures to enhance the 

resilience of the Princeton Net-Zero America 

(NZA) project and other energy transition 

programs, and to offer insight into modeling 

multisector transition processes. We apply a 

structured risk assessment framework to risks 

associated with two NZA net-zero emissions 

pathways in order to: identify, analyze and 

evaluate the execution, climate impact and 

complex risks of the pathways; develop riskreduction 

strategies in response; and draw 

parallels and distinctions in risk exposure and 

risk vulnerability between these pathways. The 

experience inspired me to cultivate my interests 

and skills in a breadth of areas, including: energy 

transition; the energy value chain; sustainability; 

environmental, social and corporate governance 

(ESG); tri-sector leadership; risk and resilience; 

complex systems; and global interconnectivity. 


77

Aneesha Manocha ’23 

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Sustainable Energy, Environmental 

Studies, Statistics and Machine Learning 


PROJECT TITLE 

Macro-energy System 

Modeling Methodologies 

and Applications in India 

for Decarbonization 

Pathways 


ZERO Lab, Department 



Princeton University; 

Centre for Social and 

Economic Progress (CSEP) 

MENTOR(S) 

Jesse Jenkins, Assistant 


and Aerospace 

Engineering and the 



Environment; Neha 

Patankar, Associate 




Environment; Rahul 

Tongia, Senior Fellow, 

CSEP 

I conducted research with the ZERO lab and the 

Centre for Social Economic Progress on macroenergy 

system modeling methodologies and 

development and decarbonization pathways 

in India. With the urgency of decarbonizing 

global energy systems increasing, creating and 

analyzing energy system models is essential 

to understand possible low-carbon futures. My 

goal was to better understand electricity-system 

model planning and the policy implications 

of these models, and to build a model of 

development needs and decarbonization 

pathways for India. I learned about various 

modeling techniques, methods of approaching 

energy system models, and gathered data on 

various energy end-use sectors for the models I 

created. This internship reinforced my long-term 

interests in using energy system modeling to 

better understand decarbonization pathways as I 

continue my research over the next two years and 

plan to attend graduate school. 

78

Anika Maskara ’23 


PROJECT TITLE 

Supporting the Case for 

Medium- and Heavy-duty 

Vehicle Electrification 



Fund (EDF) 

MENTOR(S) 

James Fine, Director and 

Lead Senior Economist, 

Research and Analytics, 

EDF 

I worked with the energy analytics team at 

the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) on 

issues related to zero-emissions medium- and 

heavy-duty vehicles. Medium- and heavy-duty 

vehicles make up less than 10% of vehicles on the 

road, but contribute more than 60% of mobilesource 

nitrogen oxides and particulate matter 

emissions, causing serious environmental and 

health problems. EDF’s goal is to ensure all 

new trucks and buses sold are zero-emissions 

by 2040. My primary project was to develop 

an interactive dashboard for estimating the 

emissions associated with medium- and heavyduty 

vehicles in all 50 states, which will allow 

EDF to easily calculate and share emissions 

profiles when promoting its policy goals. To make 

this dashboard, I gathered and analyzed data 

related to vehicle populations and emissions 

factors. This internship allowed me to develop 

my technical programming skills and gain a 

firm understanding of the current state of the 

medium- and heavy-duty vehicle market and 

where it might go in the future. The experience 

solidified my interest in using technology to 

promote social good and inspired me to learn 

more about sustainability in the transportation 

sector. 


79

Sullivan Meyer ’24 


Certificate: Architecture and Engineering 


PROJECT TITLE 

Community Attitudes to 

Large-scale Renewable 

Energy Deployment in 

Net-Zero America 

Scenarios 




University 

MENTOR(S) 


Andlinger Professor in Energy 

and the Environment, 

Professor of Psychology and 

Public Affairs; Johanna 

Matt-Navarro, Research Lab 

Manager, Andlinger Center 


Environment; Sara 

Constantino, Postdoctoral 



and International Affairs and 




Lecturer in the High Meadows 


Elisabeth Krueger, 


Associate and Lecturer, High 


Institute; Jordana Composto, 

Ph.D. candidate, Psychology 

The Princeton Net-Zero America (NZA) project 

analyzed existing technologies, natural 

resources and economic contexts to identify five 

cost-optimizing pathways for America to reach 

net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. As we know, 

however, change in America rarely comes in its 

most cost-efficient form. Market incumbents, 

entrenched political actors and other social 

forces also constrain our country’s path to 

progress. My team’s goal was to identify what 

these forces may be and begin assessing how 

they could influence NZA scenarios. The first 

half of my summer was devoted to conducting a 

literature review of studies that have examined 

the sociopolitical barriers to renewable-energy 

development and to compiling data on energy, 

politics, policies and demographics. I spent 

the second half of my internship summarizing 

those findings in a series of reports on 11 states 

identified as particularly important to the netzero 

transition. I learned about social science 

research, data collection and management, and 

various quantitative analysis techniques. I hope 

to one day work in politics, policy or engineering 

where I can help segue the findings of projects 

such as this into tangible change. 

80

Harvin Sangha ’23 


ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Applications of Computing, Finance, 

Statistics and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Community Attitudes to 

Large-scale Renewable 

Energy Deployment in 

Net-Zero America 

Scenarios 




University 

MENTOR(S) 






Affairs; Gregg Sparkman, 


Associate, Andlinger 


Environment; Jordana 


candidate, Psychology 

I interned with the Behavioral Science for Policy 

Lab (BSPL) as a part of the Princeton Net-Zero 

America (NZA) project. Currently, NZA is a 

techno-economic analysis of various pathways 

to decarbonizing the American economy. I 

incorporated organization-level data to the 

NZA scenarios to investigate which corporate 

institutions are primed for net-zero transition. 

I collected corporate variables related to 

organizational structures — such as the existence 

of sustainability committees or energy-reduction 

policies — and firm characteristics, such as 

the average age of the board of directors or the 

percentage of women in management. I analyzed 

the impact of these organization-level variables 

on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the 

largest producers of various energies (wind, solar, 

oil, hydroelectric, etc.) in 11 representative states. 

I learned new technical skills such as using R 

software, the Bloomberg Terminal, and basic 

data analysis. From environmental, social and 

governance metrics, to GHG-emissions scopes, I 

gained knowledge of the vocabulary and thought 

processes needed to address climate change from 

the corporate side. I’ve also gained new insights 

into the importance of corporate organizational 

structures. Through this internship, I gained 

familiarity with visualization techniques, and 

I look forward to continuing my work with the 

BSPL. 


81

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Caroline Adkins ’22 



Sustainable Energy, Engineering Biology 

PROJECT TITLE 

Modeling Hydrogel 

Swelling in a Cohesive 

Granular Medium 


Datta Lab, Department of 

Chemical and Biological 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Sujit Datta, Assistant 

Professor of Chemical and 

Biological Engineering; 

Jean-François Louf, 

Assistant Professor in 

Chemical Engineering, 

Auburn University 

On the surface, hydrogels resemble small 

colorful beads. In reality, these little beads can 

absorb about six times their weight in water, 

making them extremely useful water reservoirs 

that can be employed in a variety of contexts. 

The agricultural industry is a big consumer 

of this technology, leveraging hydrogels’ 

absorbent potential to combat water stress 

in crops during drought. In some cases, the 

distribution of hydrogels in soil successfully 

increases crop yields while simultaneously 

reducing necessary water inputs. In other cases, 

for unknown reasons, we see the complete 

opposite outcome. To help solve this mystery, I 

developed a computer model to simulate how a 

hydrogel may (or may not) swell under varying 

soil conditions. Once the model was complete, 

we obtained quantifiable evidence that the 

weight and cohesivity of soil can have drastic 

effects on hydrogel swelling, indicating that the 

technology would be more effective in lighter, 

more compressive soils. As I enter my senior year, 

I will apply everything I learned — a new coding 

language, technical polymer physics, hydrogel 

mechanics and more — as I continue to work with 

hydrogels in the Datta Lab and explore their vast 

environmental potential. 

82

Tiffany Agyarko ’23 


Certificate: Urban Studies 

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Architectural, Structural 

and Urban Strategies for 

Urban Farming 


Form Finding Lab, 




University 

MENTOR(S) 

Sigrid Adriaenssens, 



Engineering 

I worked with the organization Neighborhood 

Growers in Baltimore to determine the 

structural and economic feasibility of operating 

commercial- and community-scale hydroponic 

rooftop greenhouses in city neighborhoods. I 

was responsible for identifying the city policies 

and building regulations that affect urban 

farming and rooftop greenhouse construction 

and operations. I interviewed a variety of 

professionals, including representatives from the 

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and 

the Baltimore City Department of Housing and 

Community Development. I also researched the 

varieties and vendors of controlled-environment 

agricultural systems and greenhouse 

technologies that are best suited for the produce 

that will be grown in the greenhouses. I also 

helped develop a methodology for analyzing the 

structural feasibility of placing a hydroponic 

greenhouse on an apartment rooftop and on 

a typical U.S. industrial warehouse rooftop. I 

am very interested in projects that allow me to 

explore how the built environment shapes life 

within cities, and this internship allowed me to 

explore this within the context of urban farming. 

This research also gave me insight into key 

techniques for analyzing concrete slabs. 

83

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Kaleb Areda ’24 


Certificates: Applications of Computing, Materials 

Science and Engineering 

PROJECT TITLE 

Can Soil Nutrient 

Availability Limit Future 

Food Production? 




Department of 


University 

MENTOR(S) 


of Geosciences 

Common agricultural methods deploy immense 

amounts of fertilizers that saturate soils 

with nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. 

Other important nutrients such as calcium, 

magnesium and silicon are often neglected and 

not replenished by farmers. I studied some of the 

main processes associated with plant nutrient 

absorption, such as mineral dissolution and the 

cation-exchange capacity (CEC) of different soils. 

I calculated the quantities of 10 key nutrients 

present in a certain yield of the three major 

crops — corn, wheat and rice — using their dry 

weight. I then drew from a research review I 

wrote to calculate CEC and determine how much 

of the nutrients in the different nutrient pools 

are bioavailable. This allowed me to determine 

the critical nutrient-sufficiency levels of these 

crops, as well as how long they can be grown in 

a particular area with a relatively common soil 

type before extreme nutrient deficiency results. I 

learned significant data organization skills from 

this internship, and its focus on sustainability 

particularly inspired me to consider a certificate 

in sustainable energy. 

84

Justin Cai ’24 


SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Finer-scale Agricultural 

Burning Mapping in 

Punjab, India 


Sustainable Urban 

Systems Lab, Department 

of Civil and Environmental 


University 

MENTOR(S) 

Anu Ramaswami, Sanjay 

Swani ’87 Professor of 

India Studies, Professor 

of Civil and Environmental 



Institute 

I studied the burning of agricultural land by 

farmers in northern India, which is driven 

by labor shortages and the timing of growing 

seasons. Agricultural burning is a significant 

concern due to its greenhouse gas emissions 

and air pollution. The goal of my project was 

to map this burning using fine-scale satellite 

imagery since little information currently 

exists on where and when this burning occurs. 

I started by manually classifying burned land 

to provide training and validation data for a 

supervised image classification algorithm, which 

would ideally classify burned agricultural land. 

Then, I cleaned the satellite imagery to remove 

potentially defective images and interpolated 

the resulting missing values to prepare it for 

classification. I am continuing to research other 

optimizations and noise-reduction techniques, 

as well as develop a robust classification workflow 

and evaluate its accuracy. I gained substantial 

experience working through a professional data 

science workflow, giving me a better sense of how 

geographic analysis is conducted in a rigorous 

scientific context. This internship sparked 

my interest in the applications of machine 

learning in environmental science, and I intend 

to continue studying civil and environmental 

engineering and statistics and machine learning, 

possibly working in these fields in the future. 

85

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Keenan Duggal ’23 



PROJECT TITLE 

Effects of Climate Change 

on Plant-Pathogen 

Evolution and 

Epidemiology 


The Metcalf Lab, 




LOCATION(S) 




MENTOR(S) 

C. Jessica E. Metcalf, 



Biology and Public Affairs; 

Ian Miller, Ph.D. 


Evolutionary Biology 

My project focused on the epidemiological 

dynamics of the flowering plant Lewis flax 

(Linum lewisii) and its fungal pathogen flax 

rust (Melampsora lini). I worked to extrapolate 

how climate change is going to broadly change 

the transmission dynamics and evolutionary 

strategies of infectious diseases in plants, which 

has significant implications for agricultural 

production and global food security. My 

responsibilities were to: contribute to long-term 

epidemiological data sets through fieldwork and 

data collection; design and execute inoculation 

experiments to help elucidate flax resistance 

dynamics; and carry out elevation transect 

surveys and statistical analyses on the resulting 

data to determine the correlation between flaxrust 

infection and spatial data information, 

such as topography, landcover and radiation 

levels. During this internship, I experienced 

what field research entails, and I learned many 

field-specific research techniques in addition to 

data analysis skills. Moreover, I gained valuable 

experience in designing my own experiments 

and leading my own project. I am interested in 

further exploring the intersections between the 

environment and human health. 


and the Environment Challenge project, “Beyond the 

Drought Paradigm: Does Hydrology Drive Pathogen 

Impact on Plant Health?” 

86

Lilianna Gittoes ’24 


ENGINEERING 

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Growing in the Garden 

State: Understanding 

Factors That Impact Food 

Production 






University 

LOCATION(S) 

Princeton, New Jersey 

MENTOR(S) 





Biology; Gina Talt, 

Sustainability Project 

Assistant, Office of 

Sustainability 

I studied the performance of five farms in 

the Princeton, New Jersey, area, visiting and 

collecting data from each along with other 

interns working on this project. At each 

farm, we set up Arable sensors to monitor 

environmental and plant-health indicators 

such as the normalized difference vegetation 

index, which is a key indicator of plant health, 

sunlight radiation, evapotranspiration and 

more. We also set insect traps, placed resins 

in the ground to measure soil health, and took 

crop measurements. The farmers also filled 

out weekly questionnaires so we could track 

weeding, irrigation and input usage. My other 

responsibilities included preparing spreadsheets 

from the data we collected, so I got to practice 

data preparation and cleaning skills. I also 

performed data analysis using a software called 

JMP, with which I compared farming techniques 

and analyzed the factors that influence crop 

performance. This internship opened my eyes to 

a variety of pressing issues that organic growers 

face today and to the benefits of regenerative 

agriculture. I really enjoyed the work I did, and 

I hope to continue developing my data analysis 

skills and learning more about sustainable 

agriculture. 

87

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Noa Greenspan ’23 

ENGLISH 


PROJECT TITLE 

Writing With the National 

Center for Frontier 

Communities 


National Center for 

Frontier Communities 

(NCFC) 

LOCATION(S) 

Silver City, New Mexico 

MENTOR(S) 

Benjamin Rasmussen, 

Program Manager, NCFC 

I spent the summer in New Mexico writing about 

frontier issues for the National Center for Frontier 

Communities (NCFC), which advocates for areas 

of the country that are rural, sparsely populated, 

and far from urban centers. Although the frontier 

is incredibly diverse, communities face several 

common challenges, including long distances 

from health care services, precarious broadband 

infrastructure, and sometimes a lack of access 

to fresh, healthy foods. The NCFC advocates for 

frontier-related policies, provides educational 

materials about frontier communities, and 

works to strengthen the regional food system 

through its Food Hub program. This internship 

was an exciting challenge for me — I’ve been 

hooked on environmental journalism since my 

freshman spring at Princeton, and I felt eager 

to learn directly from community members. 

A highlight was when I spoke with legislators 

who recently created an official position in the 

state government to advocate for rural equity. 

Another memorable moment involved meeting 

with young and beginning farmers around New 

Mexico to hear their perspectives on the risks of 

a career in agriculture. I’m grateful to have met 

so many local leaders who are working to make 

New Mexico’s rural and frontier communities 

resilient. 

88

Tejas Gupta ’24 


Certificates: Values and Public Life, South Asian 

Studies 

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Data-intensive Analysis of 

the Climate-Water Crisis 

in India 


NITSAN Sustainable 

Development Lab, Tel Aviv 

University 

MENTOR(S) 

Ram Fishman, Senior 

Lecturer (With Tenure), 

Public Policy, Tel Aviv 

University 

As one of the world’s fastest growing countries, 

India has a substantial agricultural sector that 

currently diverts 90% of the country’s water 

resources to crop production. My goal was to 

examine the relationship between water scarcity 

and alternative irrigation methods, with the 

central question of whether villages that are 

water poor use more efficient drip or sprinkler 

irrigation. I developed metrics for water scarcity 

and irrigation using remote sensing and census 

data, and I added demographic controls to our 

model to account for population differences 

across India. With those metrics, we ran multiple 

regressions from the village to the state level 

to determine whether such a relationship 

exists. However, we did not find a significant 

relationship and our models indicated that 

alternative irrigation methods were influenced 

more by other variables. I not only learned about 

modeling complex situations from this project, 

but also how data can be a powerful tool for 

understanding real problems. After working 

in Indian villages at a different nonprofit, this 

internship and my enlightening discussions 

with my mentor showed me a macro perspective 

on the issue. I hope to continue working to solve 

India’s water crisis during my studies. 

89

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Grace Liu ’23 



Language and Culture 

PROJECT TITLE 



in India 




University 

MENTOR(S) 




University 

I worked with two other interns investigating 

whether villages in India with greater water 

scarcity have higher rates of micro-irrigation 

systems — such as drip irrigation and sprinkler 

irrigation — which are more water efficient 

than traditional canal and flood systems. The 

first couple of weeks consisted of cleaning 

and merging data from India’s demographic 

census and India’s Minor Irrigation Census with 

remotely sensed data for the analysis. Then we 

performed exploratory analyses to find patterns 

in the data, using the enhanced vegetation 

index and the percentage of wells not in use 

as an indicator of water scarcity. I focused on 

mapping the explanatory and outcome variables 

using the program GeoPandas so we could 

get a better sense of their spatial distribution. 

The meat of our analysis consisted of using 

regression techniques in the R programming 

language to quantify the impact of our waterscarcity 

proxies on the percentage of drip and/or 

sprinkler irrigation systems in a village. Overall, 

this project helped me learn how to collaborate 

with other students and focus on our individual 

strengths, while still challenging myself to 

develop new technical abilities. 

90

Colton Loftus ’23 


SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 




Production 






University 

LOCATION(S) 


I worked on analyzing different methods of 

agriculture across New Jersey and how they 

affect crop productivity. I worked with the other 

interns on this project to collect and analyze data 

such as insect quantities, plant disease, plant 

size, and environmental factors at five different 

organic farms in the area around Princeton, 

New Jersey. We also collected soil samples to 

provide the farmers with more insight into their 

land, as well as a better understanding of the 

impact of decisions regarding tillage, pesticides, 

pruning and weed control. We also used internetconnected 

agricultural sensors to monitor crops 

remotely. As a computer science major, I used my 

software development skills to write a program 

for efficient data extraction. This program 

allowed the internship team to automatically 

collect data from the sensors in the field and 

prepare it for analysis. I am grateful for the 

hands-on opportunity and to the farmers who let 

us conduct our studies. 

MENTOR(S) 





Biology; Gina Talt, Food 

Systems Project 

Specialist, Office of 


91

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Laura A. Marsh ’23 


Certificates: Visual Arts, Environmental Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 




Production 






University 

LOCATION(S) 


I collected data across six different farms 

in the Princeton, New Jersey, area, working 

alongside three fellow HMEI interns and my 

mentor Gina Talt. We were tasked with using 

the data we collected to answer real questions 

affecting farmers today in the face of climate 

change, expanding populations and a struggling 

economy. I specifically designed a method of 

categorizing tomato plants according to their 

visual signifiers of disease in order to track their 

health over time. I looked into the field of light 

spectroscopy in which the specific wavelength 

of light perceived is used to infer real-time 

plant data, such as the normalized difference 

vegetation index, or the overall “greenness” of a 

plant. I also learned the basics of soil sampling, 

and insect identification, as well as how to 

manage real-world data. The data I collected will 

be further analyzed by students in spring 2022. I 

can’t wait to see what else can be discovered! 

MENTOR(S) 









92

Aidan Matthews ’24 


SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 



in India 




University 

The goal of my project was to determine if there 

is a relationship between water scarcity and the 

adoption of more efficient irrigation methods 

in India. To accomplish this, we employed data 

analysis in the programming language R on 

available Indian census data. I was in charge of 

fixed effects regressions dealing with geographic 

variables and I contributed to cleaning and 

merging data. I learned econometric techniques 

and improved my data analysis skills immensely. 

As I learned more about water-scarcity issues, 

I decided I’d like to contribute to rural and 

agricultural development in some capacity 

during my career. I’d also like to continue 

studying sustainability and the effects of climate 

change. 

MENTOR(S) 




University 

93

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Carmina Rangel-Pacheco ’23 

SOCIOLOGY 

PROJECT TITLE 




Production 






University 

LOCATION(S) 


MENTOR(S) 









I studied the effects of transitioning agricultural 

lands owned by Princeton University from 

conventional to sustainable farming practices, 

with a focus on soil fertility. During the study, 

Princeton grew a rotation of corn and soybeans 

using conventional or sustainable agricultural 

plans. Conventional plots received a combination 

of synthetic fertilizer, no soil amendment, and 

chemical herbicide, while the more sustainable 

plots received a combination of compost, cover 

crop and weed removal via manual cultivation. 

Deer fencing was incorporated in both. My 

primary task was to investigate which of these 

treatments had a greater effect on soil metrics 

such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium 

content using simple and multivariate regression 

models. By the end of my internship, I was able to 

identify promising patterns that pointed toward 

a significant effect of compost application on 

nitrogen and potassium presence, along with an 

unforeseen positive percent change in calcium, 

potassium and magnesium in plots with deer 

fencing. Ultimately, while a longer study duration 

might have provided more robust results, this 

experience taught me incredible quantitative 

skills and inspired me to continue learning how 

to sustainably improve our food-production 

systems. 

94

Elena Remez ’23 


AFFAIRS 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Dance 

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Aquaculture and Marine 

Food Systems 



Fund (EDF) 

MENTOR(S) 

Rod Fujita, Lead Senior 

Scientist, Oceans 

Emerging Issues, EDF 

I worked on addressing knowledge gaps in 

the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)’s U.S. 

aquaculture strategy. Aquacultural issues are 

intersectional because they impact humans and 

ecosystems, and require a lot of background 

information to create clear goals. The questions 

I examined ranged from who the dominant 

players in the aquaculture industry are, to 

accessing seaweed production methods, carbon 

sink potential and finding the barriers to entry 

into aquaculture for women and people of color. 

My research culminated in an extensive writeup 

of all my findings, which EDF is now using 

to advance their work. I also assisted EDF in 

smaller research projects, writing memos and 

literature reviews, and summarizing research. 

I found my work incredibly intriguing and 

helpful in developing clear academic and career 

pathways. It emphasized for me that formulating 

nature-based solutions to environmental policy 

challenges is where I see myself working in the 

future! The intersection of policy, equity and the 

environment is a great junction for my interests. 

95

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Ashley Teng ’23 


PROJECT TITLE 

Business Development 

and Marketing for the 

Small-scale Fisheries 

Resource and 

Collaboration Hub 



Fund (EDF) 

MENTOR(S) 

Pamela Ruiter, Senior 

Manager, Small-scale 

Fisheries (SSF) Initiatives, 

EDF 

I helped the small-scale fisheries (SSF) team 

build an online community for the Small-scale 

Fisheries Resource and Collaboration Hub (SSF 

Hub), a space where fishers, fish workers and 

others involved in fishing communities can 

exchange ideas. I focused on enhancing the SSF 

team’s business development and marketing 

strategies to expand our impact and strengthen 

our online presence. My projects included 

conducting key messaging research on potential 

partners, developing all team communications 

packets, and leading more than four outreach 

campaigns with SSF team partners to drive user 

engagement with the Hub. I also led the outreach 

and training project for which I designed a 

visual guide to train people in using the site’s 

features to help them structure conversations 

when introducing the Hub. Furthermore, I kept 

in mind the prevalent device choice of mobile 

phones in fishing communities and improved 

the Hub by designing new pages, giving feedback 

on the mobile view of the site, and researching 

data analytics best practices. My rewarding 

experience widened my vision and gave me skills 

to better assess the community impact of my 

future work. 

96

Karena Yan ’23 


ENGINEERING 


SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

PROJECT TITLE 

Modeling Farmer 

Decision-making 

Frameworks: Impacts on 

Adaptation and Policy 

Outcomes in Nepal 








MENTOR(S) 







Nicolas Choquette-Levy, 




Climate change is expected to significantly 

threaten the crop yields of small-holder farmers. 

Adaptation may require changes in livelihood 

strategy, such as migrating or investing in 

cash crops. I applied an agent-based model 

(ABM) to simulate a South Asian agricultural 

community’s adaptation to climate change 

under different decision-making frameworks. 

I built three alternate frameworks into the 

ABM that drew from theories in decisionmaking 

psychology — imitation, satisficing 

and habitual learning — and tested them 

under differing degrees of climate change. My 

results showed that livelihood choices and 

community outcomes differed substantially 

depending on how the farmer decision-making 

process was modeled. Furthermore, I found that 

policy recommendations that were effective 

in increasing average community income and 

reducing inequality in the original version of 

the ABM were not robust under all decisionmaking 

frameworks. Practically, this suggests 

that developing effective policies requires 

an understanding of how target populations 

generally make decisions. I learned a great 

deal about the challenges and opportunities of 

ABM, and I explored new fields in psychology 

and sociology. My work piqued my interest in 

socio-environmental systems modeling and 

the various intersections of social sciences and 

environmental issues. 

97

SUSTAINABLE 

AGRICULTURE 

Zoey Zhang ’23 


PROJECT TITLE 

Architectural, Structural 

and Urban Strategies for 

Urban Farming 


Form Finding Lab, 




University 

MENTOR(S) 

Sigrid Adriaenssens, 



Engineering 

The goals of my internship were to help 

achieve greater sustainability and food access 

in Baltimore by addressing the structural 

challenges of hydroponic rooftop greenhouses 

and developing produce distribution strategies 

for urban farms in the city. With the team, I 

helped perform structural analysis of the beams, 

columns, girders and foundations of potential 

rooftop sites to evaluate their capability to carry 

the required loads. I also performed online 

research to understand urban agriculture, as 

well as the current food systems and policies in 

Baltimore. A key component of our research was 

conducting interviews with leading hydroponic 

farmers, commercial distribution managers, 

and urban food and agriculture researchers and 

entrepreneurs. This helped us better understand 

the benefits and challenges of building rooftop 

hydroponic greenhouses in the city, the related 

policy restrictions, and the food-access issues 

within Baltimore. I discovered that agriculture 

and food play a significant role in creating a more 

sustainable future, which really opened my eyes 

to my commitment to sustainability. In my future 

studies, I want to learn more about sustainable 

agriculture for cleaner and healthier foods. 

98

Bryan Alfaro ’24 


ENGINEERING 

PROJECT TITLE 

SuperPipe Particle Image 

Velocimetry Calibration 


Smits Fluid Mechanics 

Lab, Department 




MENTOR(S) 

Alexander Smits, Eugene 

Higgins Professor of 



Emeritus; Liuyang Ding, 


Associate, Mechanical 

and Aerospace 

Engineering 

My goal was to determine a noninvasive way of 

calibrating a camera used in a particle image 

velocimetry (PIV) system, which is used to obtain 

instantaneous measurements of velocity and 

related properties in fluids. I tested a method that 

used the waist of a focused laser beam to create 

a calibration grid in the image plane. I used 

stepper motors to move a laser and converginglens 

system around a grid, then at each position 

I took a long-exposure picture of the beam waist 

as the laser shone through the lens. Using a 

computer program, I found the waist’s location in 

each picture and mapped the set of waist points. 

The results showed a somewhat regular grid 

with occasional clusters of points that could be 

eliminated by averaging multiple pictures per 

location. This provided a proof of concept for my 

idea and highlighted improvements for future 

experiments. I learned how PIV systems are 

used to determine local velocities in turbulent 

flows, and how to write computer programs that 

process images and perform a camera-calibration 

procedure. This experience motivated me to 

further refine this method and determine its 

feasibility. 

TECHNOLOGY 

AND INNOVATION 

99

Manali Badwe ’24 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Oil Spill Remediation by 

Enhanced Turbulence 







MENTOR(S) 








and Aerospace 

Engineering 


ENGINEERING 

Certificate: Robotics and Intelligent Systems 

Every year, millions of gallons of waste oil 

enter the ocean, wreaking havoc on marine 

ecosystems and organisms. Cleaning up these 

oil spills is a costly and time-consuming process. 

I researched how oil spills could be remediated 

by using enhanced turbulence to break up the 

oil slick into tiny droplets. Breakage of the oil 

slick occurs naturally due to the turbulence 

produced by waves, but the process can be 

sped up by adding more turbulence to the 

system with synthetic jets. My group designed 

our own at-home experiments to observe this 

process. In addition, we used MATLAB software 

to analyze images of oil droplets so we could 

study the size distributions of the droplets 

to quantify our results. I gained valuable 

experience in the research and design process 

through this internship. I also learned how 

mechanical engineering can have many different 

applications in environmental studies. 

100

Sonika Bagchi ’23 

PHYSICS 

Certificates: Applied and Computational 

Mathematics, Finance 

PROJECT TITLE 

The Oceanic Wakes of 

Offshore Wind Turbines 


Deike Lab, Department 




MENTOR(S) 

Luc Deike, Assistant 


and Aerospace 



Institute; Jiarong Wu, 




The research agenda for this project was to 

study wind waves and turbulence related to 

offshore wind-turbine farms. The presence of 

offshore wind farms can result in sediment 

displacement and modified water turbulence 

that can negatively impact marine life. In order 

to study and mitigate this, I first analyzed 

wind-generated water waves produced in the 

lab by conducting various analyses to study 

the development of turbulence. I then created 

simple visualizations of waves and studied their 

wavenumber-frequency spectra. This project was 

extremely exciting for me because it was my first 

opportunity to learn about fluid dynamics and 

turbulence. Additionally, in terms of technical 

skills, I got to really strengthen my abilities in 

the programming language Python. Finally, I 

think this project will affect my choice of projects 

in the future, such as my junior independent 

research. I would like to continue working with 

sustainability research or, at the very least, 

working with computer simulation. 

TECHNOLOGY 



and Energy Challenge project, “The Atmospheric 

and Oceanic Wakes of Offshore Wind Turbines and 

Their Effects on Local Marine Environments.” 

101

Katharine 

Contreras-Godfried ’22 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Engineering Microfluidic 

Devices to Increase the 

Degradation Rate of 

Organic Contaminants 

Under Flow 


Complex Fluids 

Group, Department 






In this research internship, I learned about and 

explored the applications of microfluidics, which 

culminated in independent experimentation. My 

co-intern and I began by studying the mechanics 

of microfluidic systems, both to decrease fouling 

as well as purify water. Once we had a better 

understanding of the concept, we decided on 

the question we wanted to answer through 

microfluidics. We decided to create experiments 

wherein we removed mehtlyene blue, a salt 

used as a medication and dye, as this is a good 

substitute for volatile organic compounds 

in water. From there, we conducted several 

experiments with different geometries in an 

attempt to find the most efficient structure. 

MENTOR(S) 

Howard Stone, Donald R. 

Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. 

Dixon Professor of 


Aerospace Engineering; 

Samantha McBride, 


Associate and 

Presidential Postdoctoral 

Research Fellow, 



102

Gavin Cotter ’23 

PROJECT TITLE 

Efficient Propulsion of 

Tunabot 







MENTOR(S) 








and Aerospace 

Engineering 


ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Finance, Robotics and Intelligent 

Systems 

My internship focused on improving a robotic 

tuna (Tunabot) to develop a more efficient 

underwater propulsion system. Most systems 

use a propeller design that, while functional, 

is generally slow moving, has restricted 

maneuverability, and creates significant noise. 

To overcome these limitations, research is being 

done to incorporate elements from aquatic 

species such as tuna, which have evolved 

highly efficient underwater locomotion with 

high maneuverability and low noise. Previous 

research conducted in the lab had found the most 

efficient combination of tail and caudal (tail) 

fin motion. I used the computer-aided design 

software Creo to design a new tail for Tunabot 

that incorporated the more efficient tail motion. 

The final design will be built and tested during 

the fall 2021 semester. I was able to learn more 

about the fluid dynamics of swimming animals 

and the usefulness of biomimetic robots. I also 

spent a lot of time working with and learning 

more about Creo. All of my experiences during 

this internship utilized and helped expand the 

skills I have been learning in my studies and 

further supported my interest in fluid dynamics. 

TECHNOLOGY 


103

Bridget Denzer ’23 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

An Investigation of 

Alkali-activated Cement 


Sustainable Cements 




Andlinger Center 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Claire White, Associate 






Environment; Christine 

Pu, Ph.D. candidate, Civil 


Engineering 


Certificates: Materials Science and Engineering, 

Sustainable Energy 

I studied alkali-activated cement, which is 

an alternative to traditional portland cement 

that produces fewer carbon dioxide emissions. 

Because the construction industry is highly 

regulated, more research is needed on the 

material properties of alkali-activated cement 

for it to be used in industry. I analyzed alkaliactivated 

cement through two different methods, 

the first being a life-cycle analysis. I studied 

the carbon footprint and total cost of producing 

alkali-activated cement — from raw materials 

to the finished product — for three different 

project sites in the United States. I then worked 

in the programming language Python to create 

graphs and analyze data from sulfuric acidcorroded 

cement. Sulfuric acid resistance is 

an important property for determining the 

suitability of cement for sewer-related uses 

and, thus, this research was significant for 

deploying alkali-activated cement in real-world 

industrial applications. I learned a lot through 

this internship about material characterization 

methods and gained technical coding skills, 

which will help me in my pursuit of a graduate 

degree in materials science. 

104

Francesca DiMare ’23 

CHEMISTRY 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Materials 

Science and Engineering 

PROJECT TITLE 

Engineering Microfluidic 

Devices to Increase the 

Degradation Rate of 

Organic Contaminants 

Under Flow 


Complex Fluids 

Group, Department 




MENTOR(S) 

Howard Stone, Donald R. 

Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. 

Dixon Professor of 


Aerospace Engineering; 

Samantha McBride, 


Associate and 

Presidential Postdoctoral 

Research Fellow, 



I worked with my mentor to devise a research 

experiment from the ground up. After reviewing 

the literature surrounding microfluidic devices, 

we discovered there was high potential in 

using microfluidics to study photodegradation. 

Photodegradation is a method of treating organic 

water pollution and has significant value in 

expanding access to potable water. However, 

photodegradation has various limitations, 

including a deficiency of dissolved oxygen. 

Microfluidics can be fabricated with trapped air 

pockets (i.e., plastron layers) that potentially 

address this limitation. Taking inspiration from 

relevant literature, we systematically varied 

flow rate, plastron volume and triple-phase 

contact length to explore how trapped plastron 

layers influence photodegradation kinetics 

under flow. Though we have not yet measured 

significant levels of photodegradation with our 

current experimental design, this research is 

ongoing. This internship gave me familiarity 

with various image analysis techniques, such as 

measuring contact angles and analyzing particle 

velocimetry. Additionally, reviewing literature 

and having direct influence in the process 

of posing a research question enhanced my 

research abilities and increased my confidence 

in pursuing research after graduation. Applying 

microfluidics and photocatalysis to water 

purification also reaffirmed my passion for 

addressing environmental issues. 

TECHNOLOGY 


105

Yaxin Duan ’23 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

The Impact of 

Contaminant Spatial 

Configuration on Bacterial 

Chemotaxis 


Datta Lab, Department of 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Sujit Datta, Assistant 


Biological Engineering; 

Jenna Ott, Ph.D. 

candidate, Chemical and 

Biological Engineering 


Certificates: Sustainable Energy, Environmental 

Studies 

I studied chemotaxis, a phenomenon in which 

bacteria can sense the concentration gradient 

of a chemical and move toward where the 

gradient is steepest. Chemotaxis can improve 

the efficiency of bioremediation strategies that 

deploy microorganisms to remove pollutants 

from the environment by driving the mass 

migration of chemotactic bacteria toward sources 

of contamination. I investigated how the spatial 

configuration of contaminants impacts the 

ability of bacteria to perform chemotaxis. I used 

the programming language MATLAB to build 

a one-dimensional model that simulated how 

different concentrations of bacteria respond 

to varying distances between two drops of 

contaminants. Through my simulations, I found 

that if two drops of contaminants are too close 

together, the concentration gradient may not be 

steep enough to produce a chemotactic response. 

The process of building and debugging my model 

helped me gain experience with MATLAB and 

taught me the importance of documenting my 

work. I am excited to continue working on this 

project for my junior independent work, and I 

look forward to growing my relationships with 

the amazing mentors and scientists I worked 

with as I join them in the lab in fall 2021. 

106

Bryant Hall ’22 

PHYSICS 


PROJECT TITLE 

Plasma Diagnostics for 

Plasma-assisted Catalysis 


Koel Research Group, 

Department of 



University; Princeton 

Plasma Physics 

Laboratory 

MENTOR(S) 

Bruce Koel, Professor of 


Engineering; Shota Abe, 


Associate, Chemical and 


I worked with Professor Bruce Koel’s group based 

at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory 

investigating the use of plasma as a more energyefficient 

process for manufacturing ammonia. 

The current method for synthesizing ammonia, 

known as the Haber-Bosch process, requires 

high temperatures and pressures and constitutes 

1-2% of global energy consumption each year. By 

allowing reactions to occur in a plasma, it may 

be possible to create ammonia more efficiently. 

I primarily worked with simulations to study 

how these chemical reactions unfold, and which 

ones were the most important in reaching a high 

steady-state density of ammonia. I used a zerodimensional 

kinetic model, which considers a 

provided list of chemical reactions and their rates 

to determine how the densities of each of the 

involved elements and compounds will evolve 

over time. The simulations were compared with 

experimental results from the group to confirm 

consistency. 

TECHNOLOGY 


107

Zihan Lin ’23 


TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Plasma-Material 

Interactions for Fusion 

Energy 


Koel Research Group, 

Department of 



University 

MENTOR(S) 

Bruce Koel, Professor of 


Engineering; Shota Abe, 


Associate, Chemical and 


I investigated the ion incident angle and sheath 

profile in linear plasma devices with oblique 

magnetic field incident angles. One motivation 

for studying plasmas is to obtain energy through 

nuclear fusion, but achieving controlled fusion 

faces many challenges. One is designing the 

plasma-facing component so that it can handle 

the extreme conditions inside a fusion reactor 

without degrading plasma performance. My 

project focused on linear plasma devices because 

of their more simplified plasma parameters 

and ease of conducting experiments. I used 

an equation-of-motion model to simulate ion 

trajectory in a collisionless plasma sheath and 

measured the ion impact angle upon striking 

the surface. The resulting incident ion angle 

distributions were applied to a Monte Carlo 

simulation to illustrate the expected erosion 

profile of a specially designed plasma-facing 

sample surface. Experimental verification of my 

simulation results using a linear device will be 

performed in the future. Through this internship, 

I gained experience with fusion divertor plasma 

simulation and learned the complexities of 

plasma-material interaction research. I also 

learned valuable presentation skills and gained 

proficiency in the programming language 

MATLAB. I plan on pursuing research related to 

fusion and material science in the future. 

108

Caleb Lunsford ’23 


Certificate: Architecture and Engineering 

PROJECT TITLE 

Crack Identification in 

Alkali-activated Slag 

Cements 


Sustainable Cements 







University 

MENTOR(S) 

Claire White, Associate 






Environment; Yige Zhang, 


Associate, Civil and 


Engineering 

I studied the composition and cracking of alkaliactivated 

slag (AAS) cements, an alternative to 

portland cements with significantly reduced 

carbon emissions. They also have the potential 

to be as strong as, or stronger than, portland 

cements; however, the specific properties of AAS 

vary significantly depending on their precise 

chemical composition. I focused on how the 

addition of zinc oxide impacts cracking as the 

cement dries. I used X-ray microtomography 

scanning files to reconstruct two- and threedimensional 

representations of several AAS 

cement samples with different compositions. I 

then processed the reconstructions to determine 

how much of the sample’s volume was composed 

of cracks. Finally, I determined the distribution 

of cracks throughout the samples and compared 

how the different cement compositions impacted 

crack formation. Throughout my internship, I 

became familiar with ongoing research in the 

areas of alkali-activated materials and imagebased 

crack identification. I was struck by the 

interdisciplinary nature of the project and have 

been prompted to consider how my major and 

career can interact with other fields. 

TECHNOLOGY 


109

Rosy Monaghan ’24 


ENGINEERING 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Oil Spill Remediation by 

Enhanced Turbulence 







MENTOR(S) 








and Aerospace 

Engineering 

Oil spills cause severe environmental damage to 

aquatic ecosystems and cleanup is often difficult 

and expensive. This project investigated a new 

and more efficient cleanup method for oil spills 

that uses enhanced turbulence to increase the 

breakup of oil slicks into smaller droplets that 

are then dispersed into ocean water columns. 

Our group conducted experiments in which we 

increased turbulence added to the system using 

a remote-controlled boat and a water pump. 

We then used image processing techniques in 

the software MATLAB to analyze oil droplet 

breakup and determine the effectiveness of 

this cleanup method. I gained experience in 

academic research, which helped to improve my 

scientific writing skills, image processing skills 

and experimental skills. This project also gave 

me insight into how engineering can be applied 

to finding solutions to environmental problems 

and, as a result, encouraged me to pursue further 

research opportunities related to environmental 

issues. 

110

Alec Pirone ’24 


PROJECT TITLE 

Efficient Propulsion of 

Tunabot 







MENTOR(S) 








and Aerospace 

Engineering 

Efficient swimmers such as tuna swim with the 

tail and the caudal (tail) fin having a specific 

phase difference. The goal of my internship was 

to design the inside of a tuna robot, called the 

Tunabot, so that the tail and the caudal fin have a 

desired phase difference, regardless of swimming 

speed and external factors such as water current. 

This would move us one step closer to creating 

an underwater vehicle with optimal efficiency, 

which is needed in the face of climate change. I 

spent most of the summer designing propulsion 

systems in the software Creo. Throughout 

the internship, I learned new computer-aided 

design skills and refined my research skills. 

This internship allowed me to explore fluid 

mechanics, which I hope to continue studying. 

I also am now leaning toward a career with an 

environmental focus, which can be done by 

optimizing the efficiency of existing technology, 

like I did with the Tunabot. 

TECHNOLOGY 


111

Devdigvijay Singh ’24 

TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

In Situ Camera Calibration 

for SuperPipe 







MENTOR(S) 








and Aerospace 

Engineering 


ENGINEERING 

Certificate: Engineering Physics 

My goal was to develop an image calibration 

system for conducting particle image velocimetry 

(PIV) in Princeton’s SuperPipe without the use 

of a physical target. This would permit a unique 

opportunity to take noninvasive and accurate 

measurements of turbulent near-wall flows. I 

used two angled lasers shone through the clear 

walls of the SuperPipe that would intersect at 

known internal points. By moving these lasers to 

known-world coordinates, a calibration grid can 

be reconstructed. I then constructed a prototype 

setup capable of moving the lasers with micronlevel 

precision using stepper motors. I imaged the 

laser beams using long-exposure photography 

and a smoke machine. I developed my own 

calibration system for the stepper motors using 

a real-time feedback loop with photoresistors. I 

programmed a batch image-processing algorithm 

in the software MATLAB to determine the point 

of intersection, then fit the obtained data to a 

camera distortion model, resulting in residual 

errors of less than 1% of the measured values. 

I extended this work to imaging curved glass 

surfaces similar to the SuperPipe. This work 

provided me with valuable experience in steppermotor 

control, image calibration, batch image 

processing, and laser optics. 

112

Mina Takegami ’23 


Certificate: Engineering Biology 

PROJECT TITLE 

Discovering Patterns and 

Genes Involved in Fe–S 

Chaperone Synthesis 


Avalos Research 







University 

MENTOR(S) 

José Avalos, Assistant 



and the Andlinger Center 


Environment; Jeremy 

Cortez, Ph.D. candidate, 

Molecular Biology 

There is ongoing research to replace fossil fuels 

by engineering yeast to increase isobutanol 

production by homologous gene insertion. 

However, one of the proteins encoded by the 

homologous genes requires an iron-sulfur 

(Fe–S) chaperone that differs from organism 

to organism. The focus of my internship 

was to improve Fe–S chaperone and protein 

compatibility. I took a bioinformatics approach 

by developing a pipeline for prokaryotic genomes 

being tested in the lab. I started with a database 

of genomes and filtered out genes through two 

searches. By running my pipeline, I discovered 

that all prokaryotes had at least one assembly, 

cluster and trafficking gene. This implies 

that all organisms in the data set follow the 

same general steps to create Fe–S chaperones. 

There were two groups of genes present in the 

organisms, but these groups were not dictated by 

how closely related the organisms were to each 

other. Through this internship, I learned about 

the complexities of working with large data and 

the bioinformatic skills needed to tackle these 

problems. I also realized that I have an interest in 

the intersection of computer science and biology, 

and I plan on pursuing similar opportunities in 

the future. 

TECHNOLOGY 


113

Ipsita Tingi ’23 



TECHNOLOGY 


PROJECT TITLE 

Case Studies of Yeast8 as 

a Genome-scale Model 

and Its Proof-of-concept 

Applications 









University 

MENTOR(S) 






Environment; José 

Montaño López, Ph.D. 



I studied and modified the genome-scale model 

(GEM) of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae 

— an organism widely used in industrial 

biotechnology — to assess the possibility 

of converting it into a synthetic autotroph. 

Because autotrophs generate biomass by using 

CO 2 

, this new synthetic organism could lead to 

more sustainable chemical manufacturing. To 

accomplish this, I added and deleted specific 

reactions within the yeast GEM to allow the 

organism to grow in silico. Through this 

internship, I improved my coding skills using 

MATLAB and COBRA software, developed 

effective time management and interpersonal 

communication skills, and learned how to work 

both individually and on a team. Moreover, I 

worked on a research project that prepared me 

for and sparked an interest in pursuing future 

independent work at Princeton. Overall, I learned 

about metabolic engineering with a GEM and its 

applications in environmental sustainability — 

something I hope to continue in future work. 

114

Kevin Yeung ’23 


Certificates: Engineering Biology, Language and 

Culture 

PROJECT TITLE 

Case Studies of Yeast8 as 

a Genome-scale Model 

and Its Proof-of-concept 

Applications 









University 

MENTOR(S) 






Environment; José 

Montaño López, Ph.D. 



I sought to develop the metabolic engineering 

of yeast into a sustainable method of producing 

1-propanol, an important precursor of 

commercial plastics that is currently sourced 

from petrol. I relied on a publicly available 

genome-scale model of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, 

which consists of all the reactions and genes that 

dictate the organism's metabolism, to simulate 

its growth. I used MATLAB software to introduce 

synthetic pathways into the metabolic network 

of yeast and found viable in silico strains that 

are able to anaerobically generate 1-propanol 

with glucose as a carbon substrate. In addition, 

I improved the titer and yield of these strains 

with an algorithm that searches for and knocks 

out the genes that encode for reaction catalyzing 

enzymes that compete with propanol production. 

Some of these genes have been previously 

identified and confirm the validity of the model, 

while others have not been considered before. 

I intend to implement these results into live 

laboratory strains to investigate the accuracy of 

these computational predictions. This internship 

taught me the power of modeling biological 

systems mathematically, and I hope to integrate 

this knowledge into future academic endeavors. 

TECHNOLOGY 


115

Malachi Benjamin ’23 

ARCHITECTURE 

Certificate: African American Studies 

URBAN PLANNING AND 

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES 

PROJECT TITLE 

US Architects Declare 



MENTOR(S) 

Alexandra (Xan) Lillehei, 

Fellow, US Architects 

Declare 

I worked with the finance committee of 

US Architects Declare researching grant 

opportunities for the organization. After 

deciding on four grants to pursue, I assisted in 

drafting proposals for each. Part of the work 

I did was assisting in a grant presentation 

for the Wilks Foundation. I also worked with 

the justice committee to conduct a literature 

review of 11 diversity and inclusion frameworks 

for architecture firms. From that research, I 

used the design program Adobe Illustrator to 

synthesize the information in a way that would 

be comprehensive and allow firms to make 

the most informed decisions when it came 

to implementing one of the frameworks. The 

ultimate goal of this project is to include this 

information in a guidebook for firms seeking to 

make their work environment more diverse and 

inclusive. While I worked with the justice group, 

I also set up and designed a Discord server for 

international communication and collaboration 

among global Architects Declare members. 

116

Xuefei Gao ’22 

ARCHITECTURE 

Certificate: Language and Culture 

PROJECT TITLE 




MENTOR(S) 

Paul Lewis, Professor of 

Architecture, Princeton 

University; Alexandra 

(Xan) Lillehei, Fellow, US 

Architects Declare 

I helped support US Architects Declare in their 

mission to address the interconnected crises 

of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and 

social injustice caused by issues within the 

built environment. For my first project, I wrote, 

designed and published the organization’s first 

“Year-One Survey Summary” detailing where 

their signatories were in terms of the declaration. 

Further day-to-day work included outreach to 

signatories and the general public via social 

media for the signatory subcommittee. For my 

final project, I edited, wrote and designed five 

pamphlets for the Carbon Working Group aimed 

at educating fellow professionals in the field 

on what architects can do to mitigate climate 

change, including through the selection of 

low-carbon materials, conducting building lifecycle 

assessments, and relevant conversations 

with their clients. I left Architects Declare with 

a keen awareness of the role that the building 

sector plays in climate change, which will be a 

critical component of my own path to becoming a 

practicing architect. 



117

Nora Kreike-Martin ’24 

CLASSICS 

Certificates: Archaeology 



PROJECT TITLE 


Roman Britain 





University 

MENTOR(S) 



Archaeology 

The goal of my internship was to collect data 

on the religious environment in Roman Britain 

in order to understand religious cults and 

ideas, as well as how Roman religion interacted 

with British practices and deities. I focused 

on natural environments such as springs and 

groves, and built environments such as wells and 

temples. I designed an independent research 

project about Roman imperial cults using the 

“Roman Inscriptions of Britain” (RIB) database. I 

collected and mapped data from the RIB in order 

to determine where these cults appeared, which 

were most prominent, and the implications for 

the prevalence and reach of imperial influence, 

as well as religious syncretism. At the start 

of my research, I referred to earlier scholarly 

categorizations of two main cults: the Numen 

cult and the Divine House cult. My results 

identified two additional categorizations based 

on the purpose of the inscriptions. I plan to 

further examine the four categorizations and 

then compare my findings on Britain with 

another Roman province to build a deeper 

understanding of the role of these cults in 

stabilizing the Roman Empire. 

118

Andrew Matos ’23 

ENGLISH 

PROJECT TITLE 




MENTOR(S) 

Alexandra (Xan) Lillehei, 

Fellow, US Architects 

Declare 

I researched legislative policy surrounding 

the social and environmental impacts of 

architecture, culminating in a white paper I 

wrote on behalf of US Architects Declare in 

response to Congress’ infrastructure plan. 

My research focused on affordable housing, 

regulations for the life-cycle carbon emissions 

of buildings, and the development of utilities 

in places where they are inadequate. The white 

paper identified the policies Architects Declare 

supports and where more needs to be done, as 

well as explained the built sector’s contribution 

to climate change. The paper will be published 

on the Architects Declare website and will be 

used as the basis for an op-ed. Another project 

I worked on was planning a seminar series 

facilitated by the organization where architects 

can learn best practices for ensuring community 

engagement in their projects. I also spent time 

reorganizing Architects Declare’s structure to 

further connect their focus groups for carbon, 

biodiversity and social justice. My internship 

helped me appreciate the link between the 

climate crisis and social inequity, and it allowed 

me to see how an intersectional approach can 

address both. I will carry this insight wherever 

my career takes me. 



119

Emily Murray ’23 

ASTROPHYSICAL SCIENCES 



PROJECT TITLE 

Extreme Model Railroad 

and Contemporary 

Architecture Museum 

Project 


GCAM | Global Cultural 

Asset Management Group 

LOCATION(S) 

North Adams, 

Massachusetts 

MENTOR(S) 

James Pihakis, Senior 

Project Manager, GCAM 

The Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary 

Architecture Museum (EMRCA) project is 

creating an immersive museum experience that 

combines train models and architectural models 

in a uniform scale. This project aims to revitalize 

the small town in western Massachusetts 

where it will be located by drawing people 

to the area. My goal was to estimate the 

museum’s total electricity, natural gas and 

water usage. These estimates are important 

to the EMRCA project team and investors so 

they can understand the museum’s potential 

operating costs and make better long-term 

plans. I developed comprehensive estimates 

based on the power draws of the models, 

digital displays and building as a whole. After 

estimating the museum’s needs, I researched 

clean-energy sources to help meet them. I made 

recommendations on the sources that would 

be the best to implement based on electricity 

generation, net savings, overall feasibility 

and sustainability. Through this research, I 

strengthened my data analysis skills and gained 

extensive knowledge of building studies. This 

internship opened me up to the possibility of 

applying my physics skills in an arts or culture 

context. I enjoy working at the intersection of 

fields and may pursue this in the future. 

120

Cam My Nguyen ’23 

ARCHITECTURE 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, 

Urban Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 

Extreme Model Railroad 

and Contemporary 

Architecture Museum 

Project 


GCAM | Global Cultural 

Asset Management Group 

LOCATION(S) 

North Adams, 

Massachusetts 

MENTOR(S) 

Yina Moore, Chief 

Architect, GCAM; James 

Pihakis, Senior Project 

Manager, GCAM; Chris Li, 

Architect, GCAM 

My internship focused on a new cultural 

development and revitalization project for 

Berkshire County and the city of North Adams, 

Massachusetts. I helped advance the Extreme 

Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture 

Museum by making sustainable-design 

recommendations in pursuit of Leadership 

in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 

certification. To get acquainted with the project, 

I began by researching funding opportunities, 

grant programs and the current state of the 

project site, looking into potential remediation 

pathways and sustainable redevelopment. 

Another major aspect of the work included 

creating a 1:48 scale model of Frank Lloyd 

Wright’s Fallingwater as a benchmark for model 

creation moving forward. Working with my 

mentor, I used Rhino 3D software to prepare and 

create files for the buildings and furniture to be 

3D and resin printed. This internship provided 

me with insight into the process of design and 

construction of large-scale projects and the ways 

that sustainability can be integrated, and it 

reinforced my career goals to be an architect with 

a focus on sustainable design. 



121

Charlotte Root ’22 

ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 

Certificate: Archaeology 



PROJECT TITLE 


Roman Britain 





University 

MENTOR(S) 



Archaeology 

I researched inscriptions from Roman Britain 

that were religiously syncretic in that they linked 

Roman deities with British deities by fusing 

disparate deities into one, or they listed deities 

from both Roman and British religions in one 

inscription. Analyzing religious syncretism in 

the ancient world could shed light on the process 

of cultural exchange and, in this case, in the 

context of colonialism. I created a database 

of these inscriptions, including information 

on the etymological origin of the dedicators’ 

names and how the inscription was syncretic. 

I also mapped where these inscriptions were 

found. I discovered that very few people with 

identifiably native British names participated 

in this medium of syncretic epigraphic worship. 

Very few Britons participated in any method 

of syncretism and only a few used epigraphy 

to worship solely British deities. This indicates 

a British disinclination to participate in the 

Roman practice of epigraphic worship, especially 

worship that related to Roman religion. I hope 

to continue this research for my senior thesis, 

though I will focus more closely on Hadrian’s 

Wall, a hotspot for epigraphic religious 

syncretism. 

122

Cathleen Weng ’24 

UNDECLARED 

PROJECT TITLE 


Roman Britain 





University 

MENTOR(S) 



Archaeology 

The goal of the project I worked on was to study 

and collect data on various elements of religious 

environments in Roman Britain, a time period 

during which Britain was under Roman rule. To 

organize these data, we used the collaborative 

software Airtable to record information about 

cults, religious sites, deities and inscriptions 

from Roman Britain. I focused on a few burials 

from this time period, all of which went against 

the custom of their time period in some way. I 

wrote a paper arguing for the examination of 

noncemetery burials in conjunction with one 

other to understand what each community 

valued based on their burial sites. I also compiled 

information about some of the cults, locations 

and deities that I researched into the shared 

Airtable. I not only now have a much better 

understanding of Roman Britain, but also of the 

preparation and implementation of long-form 

research projects. It certainly cemented my 

interest in archaeology and encouraged me to 

pursue a certificate in archaeology. 



123

Lois Wu ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, 

Urban Studies 



PROJECT TITLE 

Urban Omnibus: 

Publication Work at an 

Architectural Nonprofit 


The Architectural League 

of New York 

MENTOR(S) 

Mariana Mogilevich, 

Editor in Chief, Urban 

Omnibus, Architectural 

League of New York; 

Joshua McWhirter, 

Managing Editor, Urban 

Omnibus, Architectural 

League of New York 

I worked as a project assistant at Urban Omnibus 

(UO), a publication of the Architectural League of 

New York focused on observing and documenting 

the processes of making a city. I mainly 

supported publication work for UO’s ongoing 

series on remediation. I researched the history 

of landfill parks for a case study on Shirley 

Chisholm State Park in Brooklyn, created a 14- 

term glossary on chemical wastes, and screened 

projects from a local community environmental 

fund for a future photographic feature. I also 

performed outreach and publicity work for the 

series, compiling a 142-entry database of contact 

information for publicity purposes and sharing 

the series via email with other environmental 

nonprofits and governmental organizations. 

Beyond this, I proofread, fact-checked and 

performed layout work for articles published by 

UO. I enjoyed the process of constant learning 

that came from fact-checking articles and 

researching different topics for a variety of 

projects, and I look forward to exploring this 

work further in the future. 

124

Juan Pablo Alvarado ’23 


Certificate: Materials Science and Engineering 

PROJECT TITLE 

Biofilm Droplet 


Interfacial Water Group, 




University 

MENTOR(S) 

Ian Bourg, Assistant 





Institute; Avery Agles, 

Ph.D. candidate, Chemical 

and Biological 

Engineering 

As the availability of fresh water becomes 

increasingly scarce and unpredictable, we must 

understand the natural phenomena driving 

the availability and behavior of water in soils. 

Scientists have recently realized the important 

role of biofilms in soil water availability. 

However, attempts to model biofilm-soil 

dynamics are limited by a poor understanding 

of the interactions of these components at the 

molecular level. My project focused on creating 

molecular dynamics simulations to better 

understand the molecular interactions between 

biofilms and clay in aqueous systems. We 

hypothesized that the presence of both biofilms 

and clay would lead to synergistic dynamics 

that would have implications for water transport 

and retention. I learned how to create and run 

simulations using GROMACS, an open-source 

software that simulates the Newtonian equations 

of motion for systems with hundreds to millions 

of atoms, while also troubleshooting errors. Once 

I learned GROMACS, I primarily worked on finetuning 

my system to produce the desired raw 

data. After studying such a system and reading 

numerous papers on biofilms, this is a topic that 

I would like to further explore through my senior 

independent research. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

* This internship is connected to the HMEI 

Water and the Environment Challenge project, 

“Microphysics of Water in Secondary Organic 

Aerosol.” 

125

Amélie Lemay ’24 



Sustainable Energy 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

PROJECT TITLE 

Simulating Organic 

Contaminants at the 

Water-Air Interface 






University 

MENTOR(S) 






Institute; Jennifer 

Willemsen, Postdoctoral 

Research Associate, Civil 


Engineering 

I worked to model organic contaminants at the 

water-air interface. I began by creating input 

files to model contaminants of different origin, 

size and complexity, including permethrin 

(an insecticide), decabromodiphenyl ethane 

(a flame retardant), and formaldehyde (a 

preservative). I worked with the other interns 

on the project to create a library of around 80 

compounds. We then placed these contaminants 

in simulations of a water-air system and used 

the umbrella sampling technique to determine 

each compound’s free energy profile, which 

indicates how strongly attracted the compound 

is to the different phases of the system. This 

knowledge will lead to the development of better 

methods for removing these contaminants from 

the environment. Additionally, simulating each 

compound in the library will reveal trends in 

how properties such as size and charge affect a 

compound’s affinity for the interface, potentially 

allowing us to predict the behavior of compounds 

not yet modeled. Our library of contaminants 

could potentially be used in other simulations 

as well, such as lipid membranes or air-clay 

systems. I’m fascinated by the possibilities and 

promise of this research and I plan to continue 

the project as part of my independent research 

with Professor Bourg. 

126

Daniela Martinez ’24 


PROJECT TITLE 

Modeling Organic 


Air-Water Interface 






University 

MENTOR(S) 










Engineering 

I studied through simulation research the 

behavior of environmental organic contaminants 

at the air-water interface. My project focused 

on using the fundamental properties of these 

contaminants to predict their adsorption at the 

air-water interface, in addition to calculating 

various thermodynamic and structural 

properties. Investigating the properties of these 

contaminants can lead to improved remediation 

technology and strategies. I created a database 

of simulation input files for modeling organic 

contaminants, then simulated them at the 

air-water interface to produce their free energy 

profiles. I created the input files by writing 

scripts describing the molecules’ structure. 

The molecular dynamics program Large-scale 

Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator 

(LAMMPS) read these scripts and produced 

visualization and output files, which provided 

thermodynamic data for the molecule. These 

visualization files were inputted into the 

molecular modeling and visualization program 

Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) to view the 

organic contaminants’ behavior at the air-water 

interface. Through this internship, I realized 

how understanding fundamental properties can 

provide insight on what to do at a larger scale. I 

hope to apply these fundamental properties to 

strategies for removing contaminants from the 

environment. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 




Aerosol.” 

127

Natasha Montiel ’22 


WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

PROJECT TITLE 

Site Analysis of New 

Jersey Stream Health 



MENTOR(S) 







Watershed Institute 

The Watershed Institute aims to protect local 

streams through their StreamWatch program. 

StreamWatch relies on trained volunteers who 

collect data at various stream sites around New 

Jersey, which are then analyzed by interns and 

scientists at the Watershed. Under the guidance 

of my mentors, I organized years of chemical and 

biological data and input-relevant information 

into Access databases. I then assisted with 

the creation of “report cards” that allow for 

the high volume of data from each site to be 

communicated in a succinct and understandable 

manner. Finally, I developed a time series for 

important measurements from each site that 

showed how stream health has evolved during 

the past decade. Through this internship, I 

learned that there are many different indicators 

that scientists can look at to determine the health 

of streams. While looking at the data for these 

different indicators, I was able to develop better 

data analysis skills, as well as proficiency with 

Access databases. Moreover, my work with the 

Watershed confirmed my desire to work with an 

environmental nonprofit organization. 

128

Bradley Moorehead ’23 


ENGINEERING 

Certificate: Statistics and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Data Mining Methods and 

Research on 

Environmental Literature 


Princeton WET (Water 

and Energy Technologies) 

Lab, Department of 






University 

MENTOR(S) 

Z. Jason Ren, Professor of 





Environment; Junjie Zhu, 


Scholar, Civil and 


Engineering 

I applied text mining methods to analyze more 

than 15,000 academic publications related to 

resource recovery from wastewater treatment 

processes. Text mining involves structuring, 

preprocessing and analyzing a set of textual 

information to identify patterns in data. My team 

focused on using article keywords and titles to: 

find research trends for wastewater resource 

recovery; determine how research topics have 

evolved over time; and identify underlying 

research topics, including water, energy, 

nutrients, heat, metals and biosolids recovery. 

I helped preprocess the information, which 

involved editing the raw text to combine similar 

terms, acronyms, chemical symbols, and other 

types of keywords to decrease noise and provide 

more meaningful results. I also developed a 

prototype of an online literature-information 

collection tool that can collect data from newly 

published environmental publications in order to 

build a database for in-time text mining analysis. 

In addition to learning about wastewater 

treatment and resource recovery, I learned about 

natural language processing techniques, data 

visualization, and application programming 

interface usages. This internship inspired me 

to continue learning about natural language 

processing and text mining, and to pursue 

similar research in the future. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

129

Ryan Neapole ’23 


WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

PROJECT TITLE 









University 

MENTOR(S) 










Engineering 

I worked on a team using molecular dynamics 

simulations to create a library of simulation 

input and output files for different organic 

contaminants. These files were then used 

to determine the free energy profile of the 

contaminants at the water-air interface. 

My primary focus was constructing the 

contaminant files for five organic contaminants: 

triclosan, benzo(a)pyrene, coumarin, 

dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and 

ketoprofen. I built the contaminants using the 

optimized potentials for liquid simulations 

(OPLS) parameters, which are a set of constants 

associated with atom types determined by 

surrounding atoms. I learned how to code input 

and output files for contaminants and use 

organic chemistry to identify the OPLS atom 

types within each contaminant molecule. The 

remote nature of the internship taught me how 

to independently form solutions to new and 

variable issues. Working through problems on my 

own was a major component of my experience. 

This internship furthered my passion for 

environmental engineering, and I look forward to 

continuing my academic studies in this field and 

seeing where it leads me. 

This internship is connected to the HMEI Water and 

the Environment Challenge project, “Microphysics 

of Water in Secondary Organic Aerosol.” 

130

Nathan Sima ’23 


ENGINEERING 

Certificates: Applications of Computing, Finance, 

Statistics and Machine Learning 

PROJECT TITLE 

Data Mining Methods and 

Research on 

Environmental Literature 


Princeton WET (Water 

and Energy Technologies) 

Lab, Department of 






University 

MENTOR(S) 

Z. Jason Ren, Professor of 





Environment; Junjie Zhu, 


Scholar, Civil and 


Engineering 

I studied text mining to create an analysis of 

wastewater textual data and the use of soft 

sensors to predict monthly average river flow. My 

role in the first project consisted of preprocessing 

data and primary data analysis. I implemented 

a rigorous six-step process of keyword 

preprocessing to address various challenges 

in deep text processing, such as stemming, 

acronyms and chemical expressions. While 

researching each keyword, I learned about many 

environmental engineering and wastewater 

research topics. After running our preprocessing 

code, I derived preliminary information 

from the results using data visualization 

and graphs developed in the programming 

language Python. This provided an eye-opening 

exploration into intercategory relationships 

and trend identification. For the second project, 

I conducted extensive data development and 

ran the enhanced, iterated stepwise multiple 

linear regression package on them. I learned 

about numerous statistical methods from this 

and their respective benefits and drawbacks. 

Overall, I gained a broad view of the processes 

involved in innovative scientific research. I hope 

to incorporate similar techniques into my work at 

Princeton and beyond. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

131

Ethan Sontarp ’24 

GEOSCIENCES 

Certificates: Environmental Studies, Planets and 

Life 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

PROJECT TITLE 

Simulating Organic 


Water-Air Interface 






University 

MENTOR(S) 










Engineering 

Organic contaminants are persistent carboncontaining 

molecules used for industrial 

purposes that can cause widespread 

environmental damage and health problems. 

I created simulation input files for several 

contaminants that have been present in 

recent news, or contained within the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency’s list of legacy 

pollutants, to understand their behavior on the 

molecular level at the boundary between air and 

water. Focusing on a subgroup of contaminants 

named per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances 

(PFAS), I contributed to the research group’s 

library of over 80 molecular simulation input 

files. These contaminants were then placed 

into a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to 

visualize and quantify their interactions using 

millions of computations based on their physical 

properties of charge, attraction and vibration. 

I positioned the molecules between blocks of 

air and water to determine their affinity for 

each substance and the interface between the 

two, ultimately opening up the potential to 

identify environmental remediation goals. The 

project required me to become familiar with MD 

simulations and acquainted me with the physical 

and chemical properties of pollutants on a small 

scale. I really enjoyed the trial-and-error process 

we used to assess our results, and I am excited 

to continue this project through an independent 

study course in fall 2021! 

132

Morgan Wiese ’23 


Certificates: Sustainable Energy, Urban Studies 

PROJECT TITLE 









University 

MENTOR(S) 










Engineering 

The goal of my internship was to model a variety 

of organic contaminants in order to determine 

the adsorption of these contaminants at the 

air-water interface. My group and I did this by 

writing input files to create different compounds 

in a molecular visualization program, which 

could then be inserted into simulations of 

the compounds’ behavior at the interface. My 

colleagues and I added to a library of organic 

contaminants that can be used in the molecular 

simulation program, allowing for future research 

into the different properties of these compounds 

in various environments. Along with the 

knowledge I gained about these contaminants 

and their environmental impact, I also gained 

valuable insight into environmental research and 

what a research career could look like. The work 

I did confirmed my interest in environmental 

materials and motivated me to concentrate my 

studies in sustainability. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 




Aerosol.” 

133

Acknowledgments 

FUNDING FOR THE 

2021 ENVIRONMENTAL 

INTERNSHIP 

PROGRAM HAS BEEN 

GENEROUSLY PROVIDED 

BY THE FOLLOWING 

SUPPORTERS: 

The Ogden and Hannah Carter Fund 

– 

The Martha Ehmann Conte ’85 Fund 

– 

The Crocker ’31 Fund in HMEI 

– 

The R. Gordon Douglas Jr. ’55 P86 and Sheila 

Mahoney S’55 Fund 

– 

The Edens Family Fund for Climate Change 

Research 

– 

Ellis ’46 Fund in HMEI 

– 

Luke Evnin ’85 and Deann Wright HMEI 

Internship Fund 

– 

The Miller S. and Adelaide S. Gaffney Foundation 

– 

Gatto Family Undergraduate Research Fund 

– 

Mary and Randall Hack ’69 Research Fund 

– 

High Meadows Environmental Institute Fund 

– 

Carolyn and Jeffrey Leonard *85 HMEI Research 

Fund 

– 

Newton Family HMEI Scholars Fund 

– 

Smith-Newton Undergraduate Research Fund in 

HMEI 

– 

John H.T. Wilson ’56 and Sandra W. Wilson W’56 

Fund in HMEI 

– 

The Yaverland Foundation Internship 

Endowment Fund 

134

Front Cover: HMEI interns Alice Egar ’21 (left) and Cole Morokhovitch 

’20 studied the effect of climate change on pollinators at the Rocky 

Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado. (Photo by Audrey Miller) 

135

2021 ENVIRONMENTAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM 

High Meadows Environmental Institute 

Princeton University, Guyot Hall 

Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1003 

environment.princeton.edu 

environment@princeton.edu 

facebook.com/PrincetonEnviro 

twitter.com/PrincetonEnviro 

instagram.com/princetonenviro 

linkedin.com/company/princetonenviro

Environmental Internship Program - 2021 Booklet

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