My overall interests include sustainable energy sources and urban sustainability as well as greenhouse gases and climate change models. After my first year at Columbia, I did summer research in paleoclimatology with Professor Jason Smerdon, Co-Director of the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development. The topic was using data from tree ring samples to create climate maps of Europe spanning the last 1000 years. Before coming to Columbia, I have participated in the NASA Space Settlement Design Contest for six years in a row and won the First Prize in each of my last three years of high school. I focused mainly on the sustainability of the space station, its agricultural system and energy production. Also, following an internship at the Grigore Antipa Marine Research Institute, I was Romania's Ambassador at the PERSEUS Conference in Brussels where I gave a presentation on the topic of eutrophication in the Black Sea in front of scientists and members of the European Parliament.