Ella Weldy is a senior here at Clarkson majoring in Environmental Engineering, with minors in Environmental Policy, Environmental Science, and Business. She has been an intern with the Institute for a Sustainable Environment since her first year, and so many amazing projects have been completed because of her dedication.
While working for the ISE, Ella has helped Clarkson apply for and achieve Tree Campus USA certification, and in collaboration with the Honors Program, Clarkson now has a certified arboretum on campus. She also works with a local farm to allow for students to participate in a CSA program and gain access to locally grown produce. Ella has put a tremendous amount of work into planning and planting wildflowers in our campus’s meadow restoration and low-mow areas, among other grounds related projects. Currently, she is working on creating a “Get Outside” website for Clarkson to feature our amazing natural resources. There is so much that she has been a part of that we are certainly missing here — Ella has been an integral member of the ISE team for the past four years!
When she isn’t busy completing ISE tasks or acing her coursework, Ella is also part of an award winning research team. Ella has been working with Dr. Grimberg to explore the use of a seaweed-derived compound to reduce methane emissions in manure lagoons and to analyze its impact on the population and activity of methanogens in the manure lagoons. If that sounds impressive, it’s because it is. Ella recently won the 2025 NYWEA Student Research Award. You can read more about her project here, in this LinkedIn post.
Ella has accomplished so much during her time here at Clarkson, and we can’t wait to see what comes next as she pursues her masters.
The Institute for a Sustainable Environment is working to feature sustainability initiatives, like Ella’s efforts, taking place on campus. At Clarkson, we are committed to including sustainability in everything we do. If you have a project, story, or other sustainability work you’d like to share, please email Evelyn (laferrep@clarkson.edu).