My interest in water resources began while I was a high school newspaper editor. My hometown erupted in protest when reservoir shortages led to desalinating the Hudson River as a drinking water source. My community refused the idea of river water, historically thought of as polluted by industry.
Reporting on this conflict for the school paper, I interviewed the project engineers and learned about water treatment processes. I learned that engineers were just normal people like me, but tasked with making our community more resilient to looming water shortages. I was selected for a big scholarship for my writing about this issue that supported me to study civil and water resources engineering in college!