By: Meredith Oglesby
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Sarah Gabel
Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability (EEDS)
While enrolled in a high school Advanced Placement environmental science course, Sarah Gabel, a graduating senior in EEDS, was inspired by the passion and dedication her teacher, Mr. Reding, had for the environment and sustainability.
“I gained a deep appreciation for the environment and the drive to follow a path towards furthering my education in sustainability,” Gabel says.
Once at Ohio State, Gabel became a member of the Students Understanding Sustainability and Taking Action to Improve Nature and Society (SUSTAINS) learning community where she met others who had an interest in sustainability. She worked with fellow members to create and implement a residential dorm composting pilot for the university.
“Being a student at Ohio State makes you feel like you are part of something bigger,” Gabel says. “Especially in the realm of sustainability, I loved connecting with staff and students across the university who had similar passions and were enacting meaningful change.”
Gabel served as a student voice on Ohio State’s 40% Local and/or Sustainable Food Panel, which helped to make decisions for how the university would achieve 40% local and/or sustainable food choices on campus by 2025.
Gabel also participated in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) Sustainability and Agricultural Policy in the European Union education abroad. She joined the CFAES Voyagers Education Abroad Club and was a member of the Cultivating Change student organization. She also worked as the summer park intern at the Licking County Park District in 2017 and as the Wrangler science and conservation intern at Kontoor Brands in 2019.
Gabel intertwined her interest in sustainability to her senior capstone project where she detailed a proposal for new Ohio State green building standards. Her goal, once graduated, is to have a career working with companies to transform their platforms and processes into sustainable systems.
“In this field, it is easy to get lost in the daunting world of climate change, but seeing the research and projects blooming at Ohio State inspires me and many others to keep pushing forward,” Gabel says.
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Benjamin Luce
Civil Engineering
Benjamin Luce, a graduating senior in civil engineering, knew what sustainability was while in high school, but it wasn’t until he became a member of the SUSTAINS learning community that he truly understood all that sustainability encompasses.
Events and speakers through Students Understanding Sustainability and Taking Action to Improve Nature and Society (SUSTAINS) encouraged Luce to think about how sustainability can be integrated into business and engineering and how to live a sustainable lifestyle.
“It gave me a better understanding of how I can actually make a better, bigger, more fundamental difference,” Luce says. “I expanded my view of sustainability as a whole and I became interested in the more practical side of what I could do with my career.”
Luce found ways to incorporate sustainability into his studies and research projects as a research assistant through the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering. Luce worked on projects focusing on resistant and resilient infrastructure, which looks at what happens to power systems when a storm hits. He worked to try to optimize these power systems to reduce material usage and increase the reliability if something fails.
In addition, he worked on a versatile structures project where he was able to find multiple uses for an object. “To me, one of the main goals of sustainability is finding multiple different purposes for different things,” Luce says. One example is looking at how an object may focus on water management, but it may also serve as emergency response relief.
Luce was active on campus in the Chi Epsilon - Civil Engineering Honor Society and Tau Beta Pi - Engineering Honorary. He will also graduate summa cum laude with honors research distinction.
In the fall, Luce will be starting a PhD program in civil engineering at the University of Stanford.
“I plan to stay invested in sustainable practices and focus on topics that inspire me, such as sustainability,” Luce says. “And I will use everything that I've learned now and will learn in the future to guide my research during graduate school and beyond.”
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Lauren Trapani
Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability (EEDS)
Lauren Trapani, a graduating senior in EEDS, has the desire to make a positive difference in the world through environmental sustainability practices, which will allow future generations to enjoy life as we know it now.
“In high school I was taking environmental science and AP economics at the same time and I had this epiphany that those two subjects belong together,” Trapani says. She also found herself thinking about how the planet does not have infinite resources, so she wondered how organizations are using resources from the Earth in a sustainable way.
These thoughts and interests led her to Ohio State, where she decided to major in EEDS on the business track.
Trapani went on to have three internships building upon her interests of sustainability and business, which included a sustainability and public affairs internship with L.L. Bean located in Freeport, Maine; a year-long position in corporate social responsibility with Veta Brands in Columbus, Ohio; and a farm internship position with Procter Center Farm in London, Ohio.
She was also a four-year member of Net Impact where she held leadership positions as Vice President of National Programming, Vice President of Education and served as the Carbon Accounting Program Lead. Trapani plans to join a professional chapter of Net Impact to stay involved in the organization after graduation.
Trapani was also involved in the Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars group, conducted undergraduate research focused on ecotourism and stayed active through intramural soccer and volleyball. She was recognized as a Rank II Newcomb Scholar in 2018 and was recently recognized as one of the 2020 CFAES Distinguished Seniors.
“As a piece of advice to other students, I would recommend taking as many leadership positions as you can and go the extra mile,” Trapani says. For her, the limitless opportunities at Ohio State and involvement in student organizations made all the difference when making decisions about a future career.
Trapani plans to find a career in the energy sector or corporate sustainability. She is hoping to find a career focused on her interests in energy efficiency, smart meters and renewable energy. In the future, Trapani plans to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree.
Meredith Oglesby is a communication assistant at the Sustainability Institute.