Elina Rani
Attending Engineering Conferences
During Fall of 2023, I had the opportunity of attending the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) National Conference in Los Angeles. As part of this conference I was able to network with prominent companies in the tech space, listen to talks from established women and mingle with other women in engineering. Overall, the experience gave me insight on to the possible paths for me after graduation and left me inspired.
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The year after I was able to attend the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) conference in Boston. Here I prioritized connecting with local companies in sustainability. I was able to listen to various speakers about their experiences.
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Electrochemistry Intern at Metal Light Inc.
During Summer 2024 I had the opportunity of interning at a climate tech startup: Metal Light Inc. This experience gave me a unique look into how early stage hard tech startups secure investment and interest.
A majority of my role included conducting exploratory research to better understand the zinc-air battery that the company was looking to scale. The startup environment presented a new set of problems as access to professors or experienced researchers wasn't readily available. This was much different to my experiences in academic research. As a result I had to work with the other employees to discover the answers to our questions through papers or self-designed experiments.
A smaller part of my role involved preparing demo materials for the public and potential investors. From this side I was able to gain a better understanding of how businesses at this stage work and grow.
Chemical Engineering Intern at Olokun Minerals
During Fall 2024 I had the opportunity of interning at a startup through Future Labs at NYU.
My role covered the job of a process engineer. Along with my colleagues, I worked to understand the business feasibility of the startup's technology. Olokun Minerals aims to innovate water treatment by recovering minerals and rare metals from mining offshoots. This allows for cleaner water and for sustainable recovery of materials previously lost. I worked on creating models to look at how this technology could potentially operate. By flushing out a technoeconomic analysis, the company can prove their promise of profitability and move forward in development.
