Mentor: Raymond Lodato, Associate Instructional Professor, Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU)
McKenzie Toomey is a student in the class of 2027 majoring in Chemistry and Business Economics. She has previously worked as a Climate Action Planning intern with a non-profit named Sustainability Ambassadors, where she designed a video series on the City of Bellevue’s Environmental Stewardship Plan and executed an additional series on green building practices like geothermal ground loops and air-source heat pumps.
As a Polsky Research Fellow, Toomey worked with Professor Raymond Lodato (who teaches environmental studies and law) on a textbook about global best practices in environmental politics. Each chapter highlights a city’s success in areas like transportation, recycling, or land use. Her role was to gather and analyze data, track down hard-to-find sources, and distill information into clear insights that could be used in the book.
“This internship gave me a richer understanding of how environmental policy is framed and implemented across global cities, and that perspective is crucial as I pursue a career in sustainable finance. By studying best practices in areas like transportation, land use, and recycling, I gained insight into the systemic levers that shape environmental outcomes. At the same time, my work reinforced the link between economic development and environmental policy, a connection that will guide how I evaluate sustainable investment opportunities. This experience provided me with the ability to see beyond the financial numbers and assess the broader environmental and social impacts—an essential perspective for driving climate-conscious investment decisions.”