Sofia Catalina always knew her future was in sustainability and renewable energies. In 2013, her project to decrease paper use in her high school cafeteria won her a trip to meet Vice President Al Gore at a leadership summit in Costa Rica.
Now, five years into her chemical engineering major at Northeastern, she works in the electrochemistry lab directed by DiPietro Assistant Professor Joshua Gallaway, improving batteries to harness the true power of renewable energy.
Similarly determined, Taylor Trail studied the implications of mental health stigma within Jamaican communities in summer 2019. A fourth-year finance major and the first in her Jamaican family to be raised in the U.S., Trail grew up observing how mental health stigmas affected her community.
Trail says her research started with an exciting idea that she decided to explore with the help of Alisa Lincoln, an interdisciplinary professor of sociology and health sciences who directs the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern.