Monisha Naik

I am inspired any time I go into nature, whether it be seeing far away mountains or walking around the lake near my parent's house. The chance to be away from my phone and present in the world reminds me that many great things come from being thoughtful with your time. This extends to the relationships you make with your community, the skills you learn just for fun, and the impact you want to have. I think being an intentional engineer is so important because we have the privilege of being able to impact many systems around us, so taking care of how we interact with the world can have the potential to drastically change what we and others experience.

As engineers, we need to understand that low-resource communities are often facing multiple intersecting challenges and that they, like all people, have limited bandwidth to make decisions that lead to better outcomes. Hence, we need to work cross-disciplinarily and create technology that targets multiple Sustainable Development Goals. A farmer could have access to appropriately designed irrigation technology, but if they are working in the sweltering heat, are hungry, and need to interface with many disjointed stakeholders to implement this technology, those seemingly unrelated challenges become a major barrier to access. So, we need to build simple, low-power technology that does not add to people's mental burden and improves their lives across multiple dimensions.

My real-life superpower is that I can adapt quite well. Normally, I am a germaphobe, but when it comes to working with fecal sludge as part of my research, I can change my frame of mind and see the poop as something I cannot graduate without! Whenever I am put in a new environment, it usually takes me about one week to adjust, but after that, I become fond of the quirks that come with whatever situation.