India Summer Fellow, 2026; Attendee, Climate Week NYC, 2026
Julia Marden is a rising second year studying Molecular Engineering and pursuing a minor in Climate and Sustainable Growth. She grew up in the Boston area, but spent time in Malaysia and India as a teenager. After spending some time in college, she enlisted in the Navy as an Electronics Technician, Nuclear. She worked on and operated a small nuclear reactor and its associated propulsion system onboard a submarine for four years, sparking her interest in energy production and infrastructure. On campus, Julia is the Director of the UCSP Instrumentation Division, putting to good use her knowledge of electronics and instrumentation to help other students build and deploy instruments for scientific research.
Julia attended Climate Week NYC with the Institute in 2026.
“At NYC Climate Week, we got to see speakers and meet people from a wide variety of industries, all working towards the common goal of mitigating, adapting, and surviving climate change on a global scale. The emphasis on urgent and impactful action was apparent, and there were a diverse set of thoughts on how to approach climate change. The tone of the panels across our few days varied greatly, which helped promote fascinating discussions between the students and other attendees on technological, economic, and policy approaches in this field.”
Previously, Julia was part of the Institute’s India Summer Fellows program in Delhi and Ahmedabad in July 2026. She is currently an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Department of Geophysical Sciences, working on a project examining historic energy usage over time.
“Being in India in a program focused so heavily on climate drove home the impact of climate change and pollution on the global south. The global north and in particular the US has a monopoly on causing change without suffering the consequences, and this program demonstrated more clearly this inequity for me, in a way that statistics and data can’t. I am more concerned than ever with climate change, but similarly more excited about the changing political and economic landscape of renewables and climate science. This program helped shape a lot of interesting ideas for me on the future of climate change, and the deep need for higher-level action. I am excited I was able to participate, and meet people whose relationship to climate change is so different from my own, and learn about the work that is being done to understand the impacts of global warming and environmental changes for both India and the world. There is a human aspect that can be lost when talking about these impacts, and I am amazed at how well the program was able to integrate lectures with site visits to keep this at the forefront of our minds.”