Across my four years at Duke, I participated in three Bass Connections projects within the Energy theme: History and Future of Ocean Energy (2016), Energy and the Environment: Design and Innovation (2017-18), and Duke to the UNFCCC (2017). Each of these courses helped me develop important and transferable skills in areas such as presentation skills, specific goal-setting and small team collaboration.

The Duke to the UNFCCC project provided a particularly unforgettable experience as I was able to attend and participate in the 2017 UN climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

Today, I have recently graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and this fall I will begin working in the environmental practice group for the law firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. While I have moved toward approaching energy topics from a legal perspective instead of a scientific perspective, my research in law school has focused on carbon taxation and carbon storage, two topics that are closely related to concepts I was first familiarized with in the Bass Connections Energy theme.

I therefore think that Bass Connections has had a profound impact on my academic/professional path so far, as it provided both a substantive knowledge base in the energy and environment field and also a variety of basic professional skills that are widely applicable in everyday work.

October 2021