Alumni spotlight! Grace Rau ‘24, Climate Resiliency Planner at Weston & Sampson (Environmental Conservation and Sustainability), talks with us in a recent interview about how her UNH sustainability education and involvement fueled her passion and equipped her to secure an impactful job.
"Ever since I was in middle school, all I cared about was climate change and being a part of the solution. I transferred into UNH and did some outside research on sustainability at the university and found the Sustainability Institute. I would not be where I am today without the people, the programs, and the real-world experiences it provided."
Grace completed the Climate Action Clinic a few times, her biggest takeaway?
"I found it fascinating and enjoyed working with the data, learning a completely new skill not typically taught in a classroom. This sparked my interest in pursuing the field and motivated me to build my professional skills. I’ve developed valuable abilities like data manipulation, scaling, and effectively representing complex datasets, which I continue to apply in my current work."
Grace is working on Comprehensive Climate Action Plans for municipalities across the MAPC region, CT, and NH. "We’re wrapping up the Greenhouse Gas Inventory phase and preparing for community surveys and quantification measures. This work has been eye-opening, and while the protocols differ from my previous GHG experience with businesses, I’m taking in as much knowledge as possible, asking questions, and staying engaged."
We had to ask, what gives Grace hope about working in a sustainability job?
"Excites: there is so much more work to be done. GHG inventories are about less than 10 years old in this emerging field (assuming that 8-10 years ago, GHG inventories started to ramp up) so I am grateful to be a part of this emerging field. Hope: Eye-opening to see a hefty number of students, young professionals, engineers, leaders in this field."
Read the full interview: https://lnkd.in/evzqHkti
Fiona Wilson UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture #sustainability #sustainabilityeducation #cleanenergy