Growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut, I would often escape to whatever wilderness I could find, yet to be subdivided. This conflict between man and nature peaked my curiosity to explore relationship between humans and our built environment.
After moving to Boston, I began studying Environmental Engineering at WIT and in the process of doing so ended up falling in love with city life. One summer I did a co-op at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), working on an air quality study and it was a really good time. I kept this position part-time while returning to school that fall.
Then in the following spring, an engineer resigned, and I took the opportunity to switch into a full-time staff position while chipping away at the degree part-time. Over the next 4 years I worked in an environmental health engineering research group where my primary responsibilities included managing field operations for a clinical trial and conducting laboratory experiments. Other highlights of the job included training researchers on-site in Taiwan, and leading technical workshops for graduate students and continuing professional education. This was a great experience that led to a few publications and amazing colleagues with whom I still collaborate.
Research was fun, but slow at times, and Boston was getting a lot smaller than it seemed when I first moved there. Acting on a long time plan, my wife and I decided to move down to New York City. Neither of us had anything lined up, but after a few months we both had jobs in the city and a nice little apartment in Brooklyn.
I joined Ambient Group, an environmental consulting firm as a project manager, leading projects on indoor environmental quality, green building and environmental engineering. There I honed my expertise on the “built environment”, investigating typical spaces such as corporate offices and residential; and atypical spaces such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The job was never boring, working in an environment where I could take a phone call in the morning for an urgent project and be signing the final report and invoice later that day. Still, after awhile I felt the time was right to pursue graduate studies.
After almost 2 years at Ambient, I returned to HSPH, this time as a masters student in the Environmental Health program. In order to stay attached to NYC, my wife remained at her job and we spent the next 2 years taking turns on the Chinatown bus to visit one another on the weekends. During my time at Harvard I took advantage of the numerous study abroad options: learning environmental genetics and toxicology in Cyprus; presenting at Toyota’s occupational health headquarters in Japan; and assessing heavy-industry work environments in Taiwan.
This was an exciting time to be at Harvard. The Green Campus Initiative, an internal environmental advocacy group, was in the process of evolving into the Office for Sustainability, directly reporting to the Executive Vice President of the university. I embraced this opportunity by leading the Environmental Health Club. Additionally, I served as a student rep on the EcoOpportunity team at HSPH and the Harvard Climate Collaborative. This provided me with insight into how a complex organization implements sustainability programs that engage the community, reduce environmental impact and cut costs.
Since graduating this June, I have enjoyed some time to relax before my next opportunity. Taking full advantage of all NYC has to offer I’ve been: testing out all the new bike lanes installed as part of GreeNYC, working on my headstands at yoga class and checking out events such as Mashable’s recent Social Media for Social Good conference.
