A bit of background

I grew up in downtown Chicago, which isn't the obvious starting point for someone who ended up chasing the outdoors. But after visiting national parks every summer as a kid with my family, learning about marine biology in middle school, and earning a scuba certification at 15, I began to envision myself working and living in a place far from the city.

At Northwestern, I studied computer science and environmental policy and culture, hoping to eventually combine the two. After graduating, I spent about a year as a software developer at Capgemini, a tech consulting firm, and was later promoted to project lead. Wanting to get back into environmental work, I left for a data analyst role at EcoDataLab, a climate tech startup modeling and visualizing household consumer emissions for local governments across the US.

That work made me want to see more tangible environmental results, so I decided to pursue a master's in environmental science and management. I'll be heading to the Bren School at UCSB in fall 2027 to study conservation planning and coastal resource management.

In the meantime, I left EcoDataLab this past February and have been solo traveling since: 5 months moving through Central and South America, 1.5 months in Europe, 1 month in Asia, and this fall, I'm heading to Wanaka, New Zealand on a working holiday visa, to work in and learn about conservation firsthand before grad school begins. It's been a roundabout path from Chicago to the Californian coast, but each step has gotten me closer to finding work that protects the outdoor spaces that have had such an influence on me.