Interviewed by Ellie S. (11th G)
As the summer starts, the Ecolyst team is celebrating the incredible journeys of our high school senior team members heading off to university. This week, we are highlighting our own team member George from New York who is packing his bags for the mid west.
Before he opens his next chapter on a campus renowned for cutting-edge engineering, we sat down with him to gain insights into his journey, his unique technical approach to climate advocacy, and how his work with Ecolyst has shaped his vision for the future.
Every journey has a starting point. Can you describe the specific moment where sustainability started being a personal mission?
For me, joining Ecolyst was the turning point. Science, technology and sustainability became a personal mission, and I knew I wanted to use engineering to solve it.
Using your science background, how would you explain a specific environmental challenge to someone?
To explain a modern environmental crisis, I want to refer back to my Earthquake Report – specifically, how human-induced seismic activity and ecological shifts disrupt local communities. When people think of earthquakes, they usually picture natural tectonic plates shifting deep underground. However, using a science background, we look at induced seismicity, which happens when industrial activities like wastewater injection from fossil fuel extraction alter sub-surface fluid pressures. By analyzing public natural disaster archives and structural data, we can trace exactly how these industrial footprints disrupt ecological stability, proving that our energy habits physically reshape the safety of the ground beneath our feet.
Sustainability isn’t just for environmental scientists. How have you blended your specific talents with your passion for the climate?
When people talk about climate action, they might just think of political protests or counting trees out in a forest. But my mind doesn’t really work that way. I look into algorithmic thinking, data systems, and backend software stuff. By heading off to college for Mechanical Eng, I will continue to try to combine those engineering tools with my passion for the environment.
I’ve actually been putting this exact mindset to work for the past few years at Ecolyst as the lead organizer for our New York chapter. For me, running the NY chapter wasn’t just a leadership title; it was a way to build an actual bridge between local climate advocacy and data journalism. I spent time organizing groups of students to track down, clean up, and visualize regional data tables on things like local emissions and climate impacts.
By working to scale up the Ecolyst website and platform, we managed to take these abstract climate concepts and turn them into real, public-facing digital tools that actually mean something to our community. I encourage everyone to join the effort.
