Ekaterina (Katia) Griffin

Watching the movie Avatar left a lasting impression on Katia, a Chemical Engineering major at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering.  She understood that the destruction on Pandora was a metaphor for the way humankind treats Earth today.  “I have also seen my land burned from wildfires in my home in Northern California.  The suffocating air was a catalyst for my lifelong goal of working in the clean-energy industry so that, unlike in the movie Avatar, we can continue living on a healthy planet.”

As a young girl, visiting the Smithsonian museums sparked her interest in exploration, whether it be above, below or on the surface of the earth.  In middle school, Katia designed bottle rockets equipped with plastic parachutes.  She also earned first place in the regional solar oven competition.  During her senior year in high school, Katia took part in a marine conservation excursion to Croatia.  “I learned to scuba dive with other young adults to collect waste from the Adriatic seafloor.  Collecting pounds of trash every day was discouraging.”  She also enrolled in a college-level Chemistry course, where the three-hour labs at night awakened her interest in STEM. 

Katia is now taking Theoretical Calculus and Chemistry at Earl Warren College, which she finds “invigorating,” but she particularly enjoys connecting this knowledge with her hands-on efforts in conservation work.  “And like the biologists who studied the planet in Avatar, I too grew emboldened to use my academic knowledge to become a better scientist.”  Having spoken with Megan McArthur, a NASA astronaut and alumna of UC San Diego, she knows the importance of being inspired by other’s efforts. 

Katia volunteers in her church’s children’s ministry, where she works with students in kindergarten through fifth grade.  Nurturing the curiosity of these children has instilled in her a greater drive to pursue her STEM degree.  “They are not yet aware that women are often discouraged from entering STEM fields.  I want to be someone those little girls can look up to.”

Katia dreams of a career as a NASA scientist, to study the universe and further protect this planet.