Shreyaa Raghavan’s journey into fixing among the world’s hardest challenges began with a easy love for puzzles. By highschool, her knack for problem-solving naturally drew her to pc science. By way of her participation in an entrepreneurship and management program, she constructed apps and twice made it to the semifinals of this system’s international competitors.
Her early successes made a pc science profession appear to be an apparent alternative, however Raghavan says a big competing curiosity left her torn.
“Pc science sparks that puzzle-, problem-solving a part of my mind,” says Raghavan ’24, an Accenture Fellow and a PhD candidate in MIT’s Institute for Information, Programs, and Society. “However whereas I at all times felt like constructing cellular apps was a enjoyable little interest, it didn’t really feel like I used to be immediately fixing societal challenges.”
Her perspective shifted when, as an MIT undergraduate, Raghavan participated in an Undergraduate Analysis Alternative within the Photovoltaic Analysis Laboratory, now referred to as the Accelerated Supplies Laboratory for Sustainability. There, she found how computational methods like machine studying may optimize supplies for photo voltaic panels — a direct software of her abilities towards mitigating local weather change.
“This lab had a really numerous group of individuals, some from a pc science background, some from a chemistry background, some who have been hardcore engineers. All of them have been speaking successfully and dealing towards one unified purpose — constructing higher renewable power methods,” Raghavan says. “It opened my eyes to the truth that I may use very technical instruments that I get pleasure from constructing and discover achievement in that by serving to remedy main local weather challenges.”
Together with her sights set on making use of machine studying and optimization to power and local weather, Raghavan joined Cathy Wu’s lab when she began her PhD in 2023. The lab focuses on constructing extra sustainable transportation methods, a subject that resonated with Raghavan as a consequence of its common influence and its outsized position in local weather change — transportation accounts for roughly 30 % of greenhouse gasoline emissions.
“If we have been to throw all the clever methods we’re exploring into the transportation networks, by how a lot may we cut back emissions?” she asks, summarizing a core query of her analysis.
Wu, an affiliate professor within the Division of Civil and Environmental Engineering, stresses the worth of Raghavan’s work.
“Transportation is a important component of each the financial system and local weather change, so potential modifications to transportation should be fastidiously studied,” Wu says. “Shreyaa’s analysis into good congestion administration is necessary as a result of it takes a data-driven strategy so as to add rigor to the broader analysis supporting sustainability.”
Raghavan’s contributions have been acknowledged with the Accenture Fellowship, a cornerstone of the MIT-Accenture Convergence Initiative for Trade and Expertise.
As an Accenture Fellow, she is exploring the potential influence of applied sciences for avoiding stop-and-go visitors and its emissions, utilizing methods corresponding to networked autonomous autos and digital pace limits that change based on visitors situations — options that would advance decarbonization within the transportation part at comparatively low value and within the close to time period.
Raghavan says she appreciates the Accenture Fellowship not just for the assist it gives, but additionally as a result of it demonstrates trade involvement in sustainable transportation options.
“It’s necessary for the sector of transportation, and in addition power and local weather as a complete, to synergize with all the totally different stakeholders,” she says. “I believe it’s necessary for trade to be concerned on this challenge of incorporating smarter transportation methods to decarbonize transportation.”
Raghavan has additionally obtained a fellowship supporting her analysis from the U.S. Division of Transportation.
“I believe it’s actually thrilling that there’s curiosity from the coverage aspect with the Division of Transportation and from the trade aspect with Accenture,” she says.
Raghavan believes that addressing local weather change requires collaboration throughout disciplines. “I believe with local weather change, nobody trade or subject goes to resolve it by itself. It’s actually bought to be every subject stepping up and attempting to make a distinction,” she says. “I don’t assume there’s any silver-bullet answer to this drawback. It’s going to take many alternative options from totally different individuals, totally different angles, totally different disciplines.”
With that in thoughts, Raghavan has been very lively within the MIT Power and Local weather Membership since becoming a member of about three years in the past, which, she says, “was a extremely cool option to meet heaps of people that have been working towards the identical purpose, the identical local weather objectives, the identical passions, however from fully totally different angles.”
This 12 months, Raghavan is on the group and schooling staff, which works to construct the group at MIT that’s engaged on local weather and power points. As a part of that work, Raghavan is launching a mentorship program for undergraduates, pairing them with graduate college students who assist the undergrads develop concepts about how they’ll work on local weather utilizing their distinctive experience.
“I didn’t foresee myself utilizing my pc science abilities in power and local weather,” Raghavan says, “so I actually need to give different college students a transparent pathway, or a transparent sense of how they’ll get entangled.”
Raghavan has embraced her space of examine even by way of the place she likes to assume.
“I really like engaged on trains, on buses, on airplanes,” she says. “It’s actually enjoyable to be in transit and dealing on transportation issues.”
Anticipating a visit to New York to go to a cousin, she holds no dread for the lengthy practice journey.
“I do know I’m going to do a few of my greatest work throughout these hours,” she says. “4 hours there. 4 hours again.”
