Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the lecturer is unable to attend.

“From Doomsday to Biodiversity: Designing the Ecological Future” by Laura J. Martin, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Williams College.

“Ecology Against Empire: spiders, sex, and feminist field science” by Ashton Wesner, Visiting Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College.

“Why Should We Care About the High Seas?” Kristina M. Gjerde, Adjunct Professor, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and Senior High Seas Advisor to IUCN’s Ocean Team.

“How Business Model Innovation is Working to Combat Climate Change.” Pier LaFarge ‘10.5, CEO, Sparkfund, Phil Croker ‘16, Senior Director, Sparkfund, Kwame Mukasa ‘19, Program Manager, Sparkfund.

An exploration of how innovative business models are being put to work to deliver new solutions to the climate crisis, across decarbonization, resilience and electrification technology, from wildfire prevention to building energy efficiency and beyond.

Leaders in Technology Discuss the Future–Fall Family Weekend

Panelists:

Meghan Weber ’07 (History), Senior Space Product Manager, Amazon Web Services, will speak to her experience working as a product manager at Amazon Web Services (spoiler: you don’t need to be an engineer to become a product manager!). She will share more about what her day to day looks like, how liberal arts prepared her to be successful in the technology field as a non-engineer, what skill sets are important for the product manager role, tips on how to get started in the field, and how to prepare for an interview.

Chris Hench ’11 (German Literature and Economics), Senior Applied Scientist ML/NLP, Amazon Alexa, will describe his path from studying languages and literature to building state of the art NLP models in industry. He will talk about some of the advances in NLP over the years and the current state of the field, as well as what it takes to acquire the necessary skills for industry applications. His unique pathway from literature to data science reinforces the idea that data science is not only for quantitative majors.

Pete McSherry ’06 (Economics), Senior Vice President, Platform Data Strategy, and Solutions, Epsilon, will give an overview of the market research space and speak to how data analytics is used within the market research, how it is used in personalization, and how different functional roles interact with data. Students attending will also gain a good understanding of the skill sets that help when first starting in market research.

When it comes to the technology field, there is a broad variety of ways to pursue your interests and find outlets for your abilities; digital technology has driven convergence in many ways. The panelists will talk about the trends shaping the scope of this industry and what they mean for future roles in this field? Hear from a panel of Middlebury alumni with a variety of backgrounds who now have careers across a wide spectrum within the industry.

A Conversation With:
• Dan Kelley ’99 (Political Science, German), Engineering Manager, Meta

Welcome back!  Join the Environmental Affairs team for a gathering in Franklin Environmental Center to reconnect, share food, and ignite exciting collaborations around sustainability and climate change for the coming year.