UNLEASH Positivity
Before I begin by telling you all a little about myself and what I hope to achieve through UNLEASH, I can’t help but acknowledge how incredibly humbling it is to read the stories and bios of people from all over the globe and the ways in which they are tackling the Sustainable Development goals put forth by the U.N. I am so excited to meet everyone in Denmark. I have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure it is real…
Anyways, my name is Anna Dorfi and I grew up in Akron, Ohio. My favorite color is green, I love to travel and experience new cultures, I enjoy being active, and I am fiercely loyal to those I love. I am a first generation American, born to an Argentine mother and Austrian father. From family visits abroad, I gained an appreciation for how countries like Austria and Germany viewed the environment (Picture = Austrian countryside and me). To me it always felt like there was an unspoken respect of nature and a drive to develop infrastructure and technologies (i.e. solar photovoltaics) that could power their cities and homes without neglecting the Earth. I hope to spread that mentality everywhere.
After taking a year in Germany to do dye-sensitized solar cell research on a Fulbright grant, I decided to enroll in graduate school to continue with solar energy research. I am currently a 2nd (going into 3rd) year PhD student at Columbia University in the Solar Fuels lab of the Chemical Engineering department: https://solarfuelsengineering.com/. Our lab focuses on ways we can more efficiently and cost-effectively develop technologies that convert renewable solar energy into storable “solar fuels” such as hydrogen. The idea of clean energy has always fascinated me. If there are better ways we can produce or use energy that doesn’t significantly harm our planet, why don’t we? Well… that is a complicated question to answer (i.e. high costs, government hurdles, changing habits) and one I hope UNLEASH will help tackle.
Recently it has been easy to get bogged down and feel helpless when you read any news concerning the climate and the harsh realities we will face in the next century with learning to adapt to what we have done to the planet. This pessimism can easily lead to apathy, which is the last thing we need, and a feeling I am guilty of having. UNLEASH has created a platform of hope for tackling the major problems we face today and will face in the future. I am looking forward to working with some of the brightest minds in the world on solutions to issues of decentralized energy, energy financing, and implementation of renewable energy technologies for the developing world.
