CEE Student Nominated for Churchill-Kanders Scholarship
Hyun Lee, E’23, environmental engineering and health sciences, was nominated for the Churchill-Kanders Scholarship, which was established in 2017 to address the growing divide between science and public policy by funding a Master’s in Public Policy at Cambridge University.
Lee is interested in crafting scientifically informed environmental policy to improve human health. While a student at Northeastern, he has been part of several high-impact research projects surrounding water, environmental justice, and health science. In 2021, he joined a team working under Professor Sara Wylie and contributed to “What Does Chelsea Creek Do for You?” with data visualizations demonstrating the impacts of permit violations missed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Excited by this work, Lee began conducting research with Professor Kelsey Pieper, examining potential well-water contamination from recent floods and hurricanes in North Carolina, where one in four people use wells as their source of drinking water. Shortly after this experience, he traveled to Tanzania on a Dialogues of Civilization course, taught by civil engineering Professor Auroop Ganguly, which examined climate hazards and adaptation. Intrigued by work that implicated the built environment, Lee took part in an NSF-REU program, Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Environments, at the University of Tennessee, where he worked on detecting the presence of Candida auris, a fungal pathogen, in wastewater. Outside of research, Lee served as President of Northeastern’s Taekwondo Club and currently works for BlueWave Solar.