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Above: Natalie Aranda
Header Image: Working with a team in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

Name: Natalie Aranda
Advisor:Diane McKnight
Lab: Organic Matter Spectroscopy Lab
Program: 2nd Year Environmental Engineering PhD Student

Natalie Aranda is conducting PhD research in one of the most extreme and inaccessible places on Earth: the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. It is home to plants and living organisms that thrive in an area where life otherwise approaches its environmental limits -- arid conditions, very low temperatures, and a day/night cycle where the sun stays above the horizon for months at a time followed by darkness that lasts equally long periods.

What first interested you in engineering?

I grew up in the Inland Empire, a region in southern California, and have always been fascinated by nature. ÌýI did my undergrad in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior to learn more about how the natural world works. I loved what I learned but felt like the concepts were too theoretical. I first turned to engineering as a way to learn more applicable science.Ìý

I decided on environmental engineering as a way to bring some of the ecological principles I learned in my undergraduate degree into applied science. I completed my master's degree at ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ in 2024, and am now in the second year of my PhD.

Why did you decide to come to ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ for grad school?

I was interested in pursuing a research-based degree and found the projects that professors were doing at ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ to be very fascinating.Ìý

Many projects combined engineering and ecological principles in a way that I didn’tÌýsee in other schools, which made ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ stand out for me.

What do you love about ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ?

ÂÌñ»»ÆÞ has opened up many opportunities for me, including the opportunity to teach, conduct research, and present my findings at conferences both in state and abroad. I have also had the wonderful opportunity to conduct my research in Antarctica.