Vanessa Goh, B.S. 2013

Vanessa enjoys working in the green building sector because it combines the hard sciences of architectural thermodynamics and the social sciences of human interaction within a space. After graduating in 2013 with concentrations in Environmental Engineering and Conservation Biology, she worked for the nonprofit organization Alliance to Save Energy, helping students at low-income schools learn about climate change, sustainability, how to audit their school’s energy usage, and how to implement behavioral changes that led to savings in money and energy. Afterwards, she worked for Partner Energy, an energy consulting firm focusing on green building development and certification for multifamily complexes. Her tasks included reviewing material and design implementation for project sites, conducting data audits and analyses of energy and water for cost efficiency, and energy benchmarking of existing sites. She has been admitted to and will be completing the Harvard Master of Sustainability program to study building science and social justice. “I know being in the buildings field will make a big difference, I just want to make sure I’m doing it right, and I want to make sure I’m doing it with disadvantaged communities in mind… you can have the fanciest technology, you can have all these new gadgets and toys that you say are helping the environment, but a lot of the times you’re forgetting these marginalized communities that are actually suffering more for things that we say are advancing sustainable mentalities.”