Diana Warren

BS 2023 Civil Engineering, Environmental and Sustainability Studies Minor

Diana Warren is an alumna of Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied Civil Engineering and pursued a minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Diana feels that her minor gave her a different perspective on what she learns as a civil engineer, particularly through the program's core course, Introduction to Environmental Ideas. Though this course covered a lot of topics she had already learned about, it gave her a whole new perspective—usually by looking at the environment through a more historical or literary lens. These perspectives often brought injustice and inequity to the forefront, which will continue to be major considerations in her engineering decision-making process.

Along with the Introduction to Environmental Ideas course, meeting new people was another one of Diana's favorite parts of ESS. "It's really interesting to learn about everyone's environmental perspectives and how they want to integrate environmental studies with their other studies." Having perspectives from different years and majors in discussions about sustainability, development, and the environmental humanities helped her to better understand environmental history and how it has affected society as we know it. The discussions she experienced in class exposed her to other ways of thinking and taught her a lot of interesting perspectives that she feels have made her a more well-rounded environmentalist and engineer. Besides academics, meeting new people in different years and majors than her has exposed her to a much wider CMU community than she would have had without her minor.

Diana is in Civil and Environmental Engineering's Integrated BS/MS Program, so she is now working toward her master's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a focus in Environmental Engineering, Sustainability, and Science. After that, she hopes to work in the environmental or energy industry to help bring more equitable solutions to climate change adaptation and mitigation.