Growing up in Oakland, California, Juliana Velez always enjoyed science and engineering. It didn’t hurt that her dad was an engineer. But what really sparked her curiosity was a girls’ science program, Techbridge, which she began in middle school. After a unit on sustainable building design and construction, taught by women, she was sold on studying both mechanical engineering and “green” technology.
Velez has found MIT a congenial place to pursue these fields. She joined a mechanical engineering department “with a growing number of women,” and appreciates a collegial, non-competitive atmosphere that encourages collaboration, in and out of the classroom. She leapt at a research opportunity to partner with a graduate student on improving data center cooling. But what Velez really likes about energy studies are the diverse classes, and the fact that students with varied academic interests can work together. She and a chemical engineering friend teamed up to tackle classroom assignments — mirroring the real world, where confronting the energy challenge requires expertise from multiple disciplines, she says.
Velez credits a building technology lab course for deepening her interest in sustainable construction, and more specifically, in energy efficiency. She says she likes to focus on “a target that can be achieved.” In graduate school, she hopes to research ways of retrofitting old buildings with new and better material for windows, improved heating, cooling and insulation, and even solar and wind power. Together, “these small things could have a huge potential impact on energy consumption.”
As determined as Velez is to make an impact in her own research, she thinks it is vital to recruit new students to energy studies. She visits the Techbridge program on trips home, “telling the girls what it’s like to be in college” and about the impact they could make in sustainable engineering.