Hi! I’m Izabella, and I’m a sophomore studying Environmental Systems Engineering with a focus on Urban Systems.
Growing up in a coastal town in Florida has been a pretty big factor in my interest in sustainability, specifically environmental, but as I’ve continued to learn about the concept and it’s many frameworks and approaches, my interests have expanded to the social and economic aspects of sustainability as well. I hope to one day design cities and the buildings that make them up so people living in that place have the infrastructure to make good, sustainable choices, like using public transit, walking to essential services, and using open green space without urban sprawl. Hopefully this can contribute to people’s overall wellbeing and quality of life, as well as be cost-effective for the communities in the long run.
I have a bit of industry experience from working with a small engineering and urban design firm in my hometown, which focused on incorporating sustainability into their designs for contracted projects as well as by contributing to city and county long-range planning documents. Also, I’ve been a Zero Wate Intern with the Office of Sustainability since last year, which has lead me to consider the behavior change and infrastructure that is necessary for succesful waste reduction.
My goals for this course are simply to learn how to identify and assess sustainability using a more concrete framework and get practice doing so just by experimenting and making, and talking with others about their thoughts and ideas on sustainability.