Shreyaa Raghavan’s journey into fixing a few of the world’s hardest challenges began with a easy love for puzzles. By highschool, her knack for problem-solving naturally drew her to laptop science. By 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 laptop science profession look like an apparent alternative, however Raghavan says a major 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 cell apps was a enjoyable little pastime, it didn’t really feel like I used to be straight fixing societal challenges.”
Her perspective shifted when, as an MIT undergraduate, Raghavan participated in an Undergraduate Analysis Alternative within the Photovoltaic Analysis Laboratory, now often known as the Accelerated Supplies Laboratory for Sustainability. There, she found how computational strategies 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 various group of individuals, some from a pc science background, some from a chemistry background, some who had been hardcore engineers. All of them had been speaking successfully and dealing towards one unified aim — constructing higher renewable vitality programs,” Raghavan says. “It opened my eyes to the truth that I may use very technical instruments that I get pleasure from constructing and discover success in that by serving to clear up main local weather challenges.”
Together with her sights set on making use of machine studying and optimization to vitality and local weather, Raghavan joined Cathy Wu’s lab when she began her PhD in 2023. The lab focuses on constructing extra sustainable transportation programs, a subject that resonated with Raghavan because of its common affect and its outsized position in local weather change — transportation accounts for roughly 30 p.c of greenhouse gasoline emissions.
“If we had been to throw all the clever programs we’re exploring into the transportation networks, by how a lot may we scale 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 essential factor of each the economic system and local weather change, so potential modifications to transportation should be rigorously studied,” Wu says. “Shreyaa’s analysis into good congestion administration is essential 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 Business and Know-how.
As an Accenture Fellow, she is exploring the potential affect of applied sciences for avoiding stop-and-go site visitors and its emissions, utilizing programs equivalent to networked autonomous autos and digital velocity limits that change in accordance with site visitors situations — options that would advance decarbonization within the transportation part at comparatively low price and within the close to time period.
Raghavan says she appreciates the Accenture Fellowship not just for the help it offers, but additionally as a result of it demonstrates business involvement in sustainable transportation options.
“It’s essential for the sector of transportation, and in addition vitality and local weather as a complete, to synergize with all the completely different stakeholders,” she says. “I feel it’s essential for business to be concerned on this situation of incorporating smarter transportation programs to decarbonize transportation.”
Raghavan has additionally acquired a fellowship supporting her analysis from the U.S. Division of Transportation.
“I feel it’s actually thrilling that there’s curiosity from the coverage facet with the Division of Transportation and from the business facet with Accenture,” she says.
Raghavan believes that addressing local weather change requires collaboration throughout disciplines. “I feel with local weather change, nobody business or subject goes to unravel it by itself. It’s actually obtained to be every subject stepping up and attempting to make a distinction,” she says. “I don’t assume there’s any silver-bullet resolution to this downside. It’s going to take many alternative options from completely different individuals, completely different angles, completely 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 method to meet heaps of people that had been working towards the identical aim, the identical local weather targets, the identical passions, however from fully completely different angles.”
This 12 months, Raghavan is on the group and training crew, which works to construct the group at MIT that’s engaged on local weather and vitality 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 will work on local weather utilizing their distinctive experience.
“I didn’t foresee myself utilizing my laptop science abilities in vitality and local weather,” Raghavan says, “so I actually need to give different college students a transparent pathway, or a transparent sense of how they will become involved.”
Raghavan has embraced her space of research even when it comes to the place she likes to assume.
“I 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 finest work throughout these hours,” she says. “4 hours there. 4 hours again.”
