Emily Wei-Hsin Sun | Editor-in-Chief (2017-2021)
Emily will be graduating with a PhD from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Princeton. She researches multiphase flow and organic matter in soils: a significant repository of carbon capable of cycling to the atmosphere on sub-millennial timescales. Her work focuses on small-scale phenomena relevant to stabilization of soil carbon. She is also interested in the larger scale relationship between soil carbon dynamics and agricultural and environmental policy. Before Princeton, Emily studied Chemistry at McGill University. She is Taiwanese-Canadian and grew up moving around often, but likes spending time outdoors wherever she goes.
Jane Smyth | Managing Editor (2017-2021)
Jane graduated with a PhD from the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton. She uses global climate models developed at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory to learn more about what controls rainfall patterns on Earth. Before coming to Princeton, Jane studied Geology & Geophysics at Yale University. She is interested in climate policy, science communication, and renewable energy. She grew up by the beach, so when not studying the ocean, she likes to swim in it.
Noemi Vergopolan | Director of Public Relations and Associate Editor (2018-2020)
Noemi graduated with a PhD from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Princeton University and a certificate in scientific computing. Noemi’s work relies on combining hyper-resolution land surface models, remotely sensed data, and machine learning techniques to assess the impact of human activities on the water-energy-food nexus, and to bridge the gap between hydrological information and field scales applications. Prior to Princeton, she graduated in environmental engineering from the Federal University of Paraná and worked for two years in the engineering consulting industry. Noemi is from Brazil and she loves traveling, dancing, and cooking.
Julio Herrera Estrada | Co-Founder and Associate Editor (2016-2017)
Julio graduated with a PhD from the Environmental Engineering and Water Resources Program and a Graduate Certificate on Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From there, he held positions as a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University’s Department of Earth System Science, a Consultant at The World Bank, and is currently an applied scientist at Descartes Labs. His research focuses on the study of droughts and heat waves: what are the physical mechanisms that drive them, how they might be affected by climate change, and how do they impact our water, energy, and food resources. Before arriving at Princeton, Julio did his B.S. in Applied Mathematics at Columbia University. He is originally from Mexico City, Mexico, and enjoys running, swimming, skiing and playing soccer. He served as Highwire Earth‘s Editor-in-Chief from 2016-2017. Follow him on Twitter @JulioSustDev.
Matt Grobis | Co-Founder and Associate Editor (2016-2017)
Matt graduated with a PhD from the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton. He studies how information moves through coordinated animal groups, the importance of individual variation, and how fish avoid getting eaten by predators. He loves R, playing drums, and blogging about science and metal. He served as Highwire Earth‘s Managing Editor from 2016-2017. Follow him on Twitter @mgrobis.
Arvind Ravikumar | Co-Founder and Associate Editor (2016-2017)
Arvind graduated with a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2015. He grew up in India, went to college to study Physics, and ended up getting a degree in electrical engineering. At Princeton, he was lucky to be able to do a lot of cool things, and also a bit of research, including work on infrared lasers and detectors for environmental sensing systems. Somewhere later in grad school, he became interested in the topics of energy, climate change and policy. Outside of work, he is an avid outdoor adventurer, often organizing backpacking, hiking, mountaineering or canyoneering trips. He served as Highwire Earth‘s Associate Editor from 2016-2017.
Greta Shum | Co-Founder and Communications Director (Spring 2016)
Greta Shum ’14 is passionate about science communication at Princeton and beyond. She currently works as a High Meadows Fellow at Climate Central in multimedia science journalism. Climate Central is a non-profit organization based in Princeton, NJ that works to communicate the impacts and causes of climate change to the general public. Prior to joining Climate Central, Greta received a ThinkSwiss Fellowship to study science writing with astrophysics professor, Kevin Heng, at the University of Bern’s Center for Space and Habitability. As an undergraduate at Princeton, Greta studied Comparative Literature and received a certificate in Planets and Life. Follow her on Twitter @gretashum.