Daniella Park Fenster | Student Spotlight
Daniella Park Fenster
Bachelors Candidate
Materials Science and Engineering
"During my undergrad at Stanford so far, I have focused my efforts on the clean energy transition, exploring materials and technological innovations through my MSE courseload and research."
As a California native, I spent my childhood immersed in nature, from camping and hiking in the Santa Monica mountains to swimming and paddle boarding in the ocean to biking across California with my dad. And so, I had known from a very young age that I wanted to spend my life and career protecting nature and tackling the climate crisis. I spent middle and high school exploring different instruments for enacting change, from local and state climate policy to fire prevention to coral conservation, and found a passion in engineering solutions for climate change.
During my undergrad at Stanford so far, I have focused my efforts on the clean energy transition, exploring materials and technological innovations through my MSE courseload and research. I have had the pleasure of contributing to research projects–on campus and in industry–focused on methane photocatalysis and bioplastics production, where I worked toward fuel circularity and sustainability in chemical manufacturing. This past academic year, I have also worked with a team of students to target the increasing issue of power loss after extreme flooding events. We have created a dual-phase power generation device that harnesses mechanical and electrochemical power to provide access to communication and emergency medical devices in the absence of grid connectivity after floods and hurricanes.
Going forward, I hope to continue advancing technological solutions for both climate adaptation and carbon emissions mitigation while I focus on my growing interest in nuclear energy and the many materials challenges that come with it. I am very excited to spend this summer at SLAC investigating these challenges that remain barriers to commercialization, like inner wall materials and hohlraum symmetry.
