Synapse and Climable Welcome Student Under Internship Program for Energy Justice

In the Fall of 2021, Climable and Synapse partnered to form the Internship Program for Energy Justice. The program aims to diversify the energy analysis field through mentorship, relationship building, and exposure to regulatory, utility, and energy processes.

We are thrilled to welcome the latest participant of this program: Angela Zeng. Read more about her background and interests below!

I'm Angela and I am a student at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University pursuing a Master of Environmental Management. At Duke, I support Prof. Wenhong Li's research on modeling and predicting the impact of drought on the methane emissions of coastal wetlands. I attended Cornell University for my Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. At Cornell, I assisted research in determining the costs of treating drinking water with varying nitrate concentrations as a part of a larger goal in identifying the social cost of nutrient pollution. I also conducted research on the economic valuation of the ecosystem services provided by birds.

My interest in energy arose from my capstone class at Cornell, where I worked on a lifetime economic analysis of the lake source cooling facility at Cornell—the facility reduced the energy use for the cooling of the Ithaca High School and Cornell’s campus by 85 percent! At Duke, I developed my interest in energy by taking classes in energy modeling, power markets, and energy technology. As a Synapse/Climable intern, I hope to apply and further develop my knowledge in those areas, while centering on marginalized communities and maintaining a justice-centered perspective. I am also interested in efficiency, demand response, offshore wind, and microgrids. I have experience using Excel, Python, ArcGIS, R, and Stata, and would like to further those skills in addition to my writing and science communication skills. 
 
In my free time, I enjoy reading, biking, and rock climbing. I am from New York but am so excited to be in Cambridge this summer to assist and learn from the Synapse and Climable teams!