Do you see science and social change fitting together?

Yes, definitely social change. As we learn more about nature, we can learn more about how we can improve our lives. It's inspiring, half of the things that humans have created are influenced by nature. And it has caused social change. Like airplanes have been remodeled by the design of a bird and yes, there are some different developments as well, but now airplanes are one of the most common things we use. We can even find out how to make all these improvements, to make things friendlier for environments, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s how we can improve social change by learning from nature.

How are you inspired by science?

I’m inspired by nature. I love all things, animals, wildlife, plants, biology. It’s something, you know, it’s how life is created. It’s very fascinating to me how there are so many species, so many different forms of life on Earth and that they each have unique characteristics. And everything you can do to study them, how you can learn from them, everything that you see. It’s really, really fascinating to me, how much you can see of each species. I used to do the Shaw Nature Reserve program [Shaw Institute for Field Training]. We would study animals and plants. We’d meet up, we would hike, we would play games and it'd be so fun.

I relate to that a lot. I'm an environmental analysis major and most of the reason why I picked the environmental major is because of the way I feel in nature. It’s like a second home, being in the outdoors.