Caltech Courses

Sustainable Engineering is an interdisciplinary annual course offered annually at Caltech. It is hosted by the Chemical Engineering department and cross-listed in Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, and Environmental Science.

I worked with Prof. Julie Kornfield to develop the structure for a new 9-unit course for junior-year chemical engineering undergrads. I also helped prepare lectures, problem sets, and essay questions.

Fall 2020: Course development with Prof. Julie Kornfield

Winter 2021: TA for "Sustainable Chemical Engineering"

Winter 2022: TA for "Sustainable Engineering"

An anonymous student wrote in their review, “This class is truly excellent. Every week sheds light on a new aspect of sustainability and had me thinking on an entirely new scale.”(2021)

In Winter 2020, I was a teaching assistant and guest lecturer for a 9-credit seminar course on sustainability where students attended guest lectures by speakers from academia, industry, and government. Students completed weekly homework assignments, and their final project was either research based or service oriented. The class was networking oriented, and aimed to inspire sustainability careers.

In Winter 2019, I developed and was a teaching assistant for a 1-credit lunch seminar course on sustainability. The service-based class focused on improving campus sustainability with small but highly visible projects. Students conceived and implemented practical solutions to make the Caltech campus more sustainable.

Mentored Anna Li, Caltech Undergrad, during the academic year in energy system modeling and electrochemistry (Fall 2021-Spring 2023). 

Co-authored paper with Anna:

"The influence of regional geophysical resource variability on the value of single- and multi-storage technology portfolios."

Li, Virgüez, Dowling et al., Environ. Sci. Technol., 2024.

Anna will start a PhD at Princeton in 2024 in energy system modeling advised by Jesse Jenkins!

Mentored Madeleine Swint, Caltech Undergrad, and summer research fellow in electrochemistry (Summer 2021-Spring 2023).

Co-authored paper with Maddie:

"Catalysis of the oxygen-evolution reaction in 1.0 M sulfuric acid by manganese antimonate films synthesized via chemical vapor deposition." 

Dowling et al., ACS Appl. Energy Mater, 2024. (See Front Cover)

Maddie will start a PhD at Stanford in 2024 in chemical engineering!