tessa clarizio
weSTEM external partnership coordinator
[she/her]
Tessa is a fourth year
PhD candidate in Energy-Water-Environment-Sustainability track of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, researching atmospheric chemistry and air quality
modeling. She received her Bachelors in Environmental Engineering with a Minor
in Energy Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 2017, and a Masters in
Water, Waste and Environmental Engineering from University College Dublin in
2018. She enjoys traveling, baking, knitting, and hanging out with her cats.
︎ westemfunding@gmail.com
︎ westemfunding@gmail.com
abby beck
weSTEM external partnership coordinator
[she/her]
Abby is a PhD
candidate in Civil Engineering working to incorporate equity into
infrastructure decision-making for improved community resilience to natural
hazards. She received her Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from the University
of Texas at Austin in 2019 and her Master’s in Civil Engineering from the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2020. Outside of work, she loves to cook, bake,
throw pottery, knit, read, and enjoy the outdoors.
︎ westemfunding@gmail.com
︎ westemfunding@gmail.com
archana verma
weSTEM speaker co-coordinator
[she/her]
Archana
is a third year PhD student in Chemical Engineering. She received her
Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 2021. She is
fiercely passionate about supporting women in STEM, advocating for accessible
mental health care, and combating climate change. In her free time, you can
find her spending time with friends, dancing, cooking, playing badminton,
reading, or drawing.
︎ westemspeakers@gmail.com
︎ westemspeakers@gmail.com
emily lawson-bulten
weSTEM speaker co-coordinator
[she/her]
Emily
Lawson-Bulten is a third year PhD student in the Agricultural & Biological
Engineering Department. Her research grows out of Contextual Engineering and
aims to provide engineers with guides to understanding and addressing unjust
power dynamics when working with communities, especially in non-industrialized
areas. She has worked on water systems in seven countries, promoting humility
in engineering understanding to emphasize community decision-making. She
graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering and International Development
Studies from Calvin University in 2017. She then worked in industry and
government as a Natural Resource Engineer before coming to UIUC for her PhD.
She loves the outdoors, refurbishing old things, ceramics, and – of course - her
pup.
︎ westemspeakers@gmail.com
︎ westemspeakers@gmail.com
jiachun shi
gradSWE Director
[she/her]
Jiachun is a fifth-year PhD student in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Washington in 2017 and her Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2019. In her free time, she loves baking, watching thriller movies, and playing with her dog Sony.