Aslhy Torres is a graduate student in the Environmental Science & Engineering program here at Clarkson. She has a bachelors in Environmental Engineering from Costa Rica, where she grew up. The cold weather in Potsdam has certainly been a change, but Torres has embraced it, all while excelling in her classes and research.
Currently, Torres is working with Dr. Susan Powers on life cycle assessment (LCA) based research for her thesis. Her research looks at the LCA of industrial-scale seaweed aquaculture as a strategy to reduce methane emissions in dairy farming, with a focus on the sustainable use of marine systems for climate mitigation. Her study evaluates the potential environmental trade-offs of expanding Saccharina latissima farming, particularly in relation to water resource use, marine ecosystem impacts, and energy-intensive processing stages such as drying. Torres’ work highlights the importance of optimizing seaweed processing for use in dairy farming to ensure that its climate benefits do not come at the expense of marine ecosystem health and resource efficiency.
Recently, Torres attended the NYWEA conference in New York City and presented her research. She attended the conference as a part of the InFLOW program, which aims to support university students from historically underrepresented groups with a focus in STEM applicable to the environment.
Torres is currently the Acting President of Clarkson’s NYWEA Chapter, she volunteers with the ISE for tabling and food waste events, and she helped teach one of the ISE’s First Year Seminar guest lectures this past fall.
The Institute for a Sustainable Environment is working to feature sustainability initiatives, like Aslhy’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).