Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Allison Stewart has been accepted into Cornell鈥檚 biological and environmental engineering master鈥檚 program
by Adam Grybowski
For an environmental science major, Allison Stewart harbors a career ambition that, at first, may sound quite illogical.
鈥淚t would be great to work with one of the top polluters in the world,鈥 she says.
Stewart understands how counterintuitive that sounds. Explaining her thinking during a recent interview, she continues, 鈥淏ut if you鈥檙e the person striving to help a large company make big decisions on sustainability, that can have a big impact.鈥
Upon graduating from 小优视频 in May, Stewart is looking ahead to continuing her internship this summer with AstraZeneca in its safety, health, and environment department and then entering a one-year master鈥檚 program at Cornell in biological and environmental engineering. A Lester B. Knight Scholarship awardee from Cornell, she will also be able to pursue an MBA after she completes her engineering master鈥檚.
These steps are part of her larger plan to contribute to innovation that will meaningfully address major sustainability challenges she has studied in detail.
鈥淎 lot of environmental science is describing what humans are doing that is bad,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 constantly found myself sitting there in class thinking about these defined problems we have, and though the challenges are daunting, I kept finding myself getting really excited.鈥
That excitement stems from her optimism that human ingenuity can create a better future. During meetings at AstraZeneca, she has felt drawn to the problem-solving skills of the company鈥檚 engineers. The experience opened her eyes to individuals inside a multinational company working to tackle complex issues.
鈥淚 feel like there鈥檚 a real need for solutions and positive change and that鈥檚 the driver of wanting to get an engineering degree, because it is focused on solutions,鈥 says Stewart.
I feel like there鈥檚 a real need for solutions and positive change and that鈥檚 the driver of wanting to get an engineering degree, because it is focused on solutions."
Drawn to understanding how the world works, Stewart has long known she wanted to study science. Originally from Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, she was recruited to swim at Rider and earned a full-tuition scholarship. Four years later, she has established herself as a competitive student-athlete while conducting significant scientific research.
For the past three years, she has worked with Professor Daniel Druckenbrod, Ph.D., on a multi-university project generating data about how the climate has changed in Southeast Asia over the past 500 to 1,000 years. Druckenbrod鈥檚 research centers around measuring tree rings to make inferences about past events.
After observing a stress response in trees called traumatic resin ducts, Stewart used that as the basis for her senior thesis and Baccalaureate Honors Program project. This spring, she presented her research at the Mid-Atlantic Ecological Society of America Meeting at Longwood Gardens, where her poster won third place in the undergraduate category.
鈥淚t was such a unique opportunity,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 know plenty of undergrads who are studying science, but not many who have gotten to work with these global and international samples. I didn鈥檛 come into college thinking that I have to study trees, but it opened up that world of science to me.鈥
Stewart also made a startling discovery while conducting research with Dr. Hongbing Sun, who specializes in hydrology. Leveraging data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she found that land is sinking in four counties of southern New Jersey due to groundwater being pumped out.
鈥淚 was able to project that after 100 years the land will have sunk 10 millimeters," she says. 鈥淭hat might not sound like much, but it will be more consequential when combined with sea level rise because of climate change.鈥
Nearing graduation, Stewart has found fulfillment in the pursuit of her goals, even in spite of the demanding nature of her studies and athletic commitments.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard sometimes,鈥 she says. 鈥淭he exams are hard. The labs are long. Swim team is a lot of 5 a.m. wakes up. But it was all worth it.鈥