Me Hanging Out with a Waterfall in Iceland (Image by Author)
What’s up! Thanks for joining me on my blogging journey. The world of blogging, and social media in general, isn’t one of my strengths but I’m hoping to change that in the upcoming year. I wanted to start this blog as a way to share the work I am doing, hoping that it might be another data point for those who are thinking about going to grad school. I also wouldn’t be mad if it helped me remember a fraction of all the things that have been stuffed into my brain.
So what exactly am I doing? I am a Master’s student at Stanford studying Environmental Engineering. In addition to my studies, I work as a graduate researcher at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment investigating the role of water data in basin scale decision-making. I started school in 2019 and will be graduating in summer 2021(jobs anyone?)… time flies!
I originally studied mechanical engineering in Wisconsin and had a couple of internships in the field during my time there. When I finally did graduate I was lucky enough to get a job working at Accenture in Washington D.C., where I worked as a functional consultant helping to implement Salesforce systems for federal clients. I learned a lot during my time there and valued working with so many great people.
My time at Accenture reaffirmed that I am a mission driven person and the climate change movement has really inspired me. When thinking about my next step, I evaluated different options and eventually decided to apply to grad school. I had always thought about getting another degree, and ultimately I came back to school hoping to use my experiences to make a positive impact on the future.
Finding the right program was tough. There are so many different options to choose from, and so many different factors to consider like location, program requirements, and costs. I also had a fiancé (now wife!) who I needed to be convinced that this was a good decision. I decided on environmental engineering because of my engineering background and goal to work on climate change. I was fortunate enough to get into Stanford and was excited to go because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program. And I was tired of snow.
Since I’ve moved to California, I’ve also become more aware of the drastic repercussions of climate change. For example, growing up in the Midwest, I never really grasped the impact of wildfires since they were not very common. This photo is one of the many fires my wife and I encountered during the summer of 2020. It represents one of the many devastating wildfires California suffered.
Press enter or click to view image in full sizeOne of Many Wildfires in CA 2020 (Image by Author)
One of Many Wildfires in CA 2020 (Image by Author)
Sometimes it can be hard to fully understand the repercussions of climate change without first hand experience. My encounters with California wildfires further motivated my commitment to making an impact in the field. I’m interested in the way new technology can help in the fight against climate change. The explosion of data science and computing power has improved the ability to analyze large scale environmental datasets. And that’s just one small piece of the pie. During my internship with Imagine H2O, a water startup accelerator, I learned about numerous companies developing innovative solutions to water challenges.
Leaving work and coming back to school was scary, but I’m glad I did it. I’ve enjoyed my diverse course work. Some of the topics my classes have focused on include sustainable water resource development, air pollution, wildfires, remote sensing, and machine learning. For some of these classes I have developed projects — which can be found under the projects section of my site — exploring how data science can be used to analyze problems in these fields.
Hopefully you are also interested in climate change, sustainability, and ways in which new technology can help us solve this growing crisis. I’m relatively new to the field and I hope by sharing my learning experiences I can connect and collaborate with others dedicated to solving environmental challenges. I believe there is a lot of potential to make positive changes in the field and would love to share ideas.
In addition to being a full time graduate student at Stanford, I enjoy skateboarding, reading Tana French mystery novels, and watching Newcastle United lose on a regular basis. I’ve always loved being outdoors and building things, which is what drew me to engineering in the first place. A prime example is the S.S. Poseidon, a watercraft my friends and I built during our senior year of high school. It may be hard to see with that excellent image quality, but there is a wooden platform keeping us all afloat in a lake that I now know has very questionable water quality.
The S.S. Poseidon in all of its Glory (Image by Author)
The S.S. Poseidon in all of its Glory (Image by Author)
I’m notoriously bad at “internetting”. I am a triplet and my brothers keep me up to date on all the latest memes, but I hope this blog gives me a little more motivation to keep learning and sharing.
If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed reading this and are looking forward to future posts. I’m excited to share my learning journey with you all and would love to hear your thoughts as I start sharing content.
Connect: jackseagrist.com | @JackSeagrist | /jackson-seagrist