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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 Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder in 2024, and am now in the second year of my PhD.

Why did you decide to come to Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder for grad school?

I was interested in pursuing a research-based degree and found the projects that professors were doing at Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder to be very fascinating.Ìý

Many projects combined engineering and ecological principles in a way that I didn’tÌýsee in other schools, which made Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder stand out for me.

What do you love about Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder?

Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder 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.