Offshore to On Campus • Sita Syal

(Mechanical Engineering PhD Student, Stanford University || CA USA)

📸 credit: Thomas Wucherpfennig

“I was working on projects offshore on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico two years out of college. Two years later, they promoted me to be the youngest offshore engineer that rig ever had — I was the only woman offshore engineer at that time. I saw this incredible engineering world of the most amazing engineering feats — how can we accomplish getting this oil and gas out of bajillions of feet under the Earth? It blew my mind, but I knew the direction I wanted to go was within sustainability, and that was not an oil company’s focus at the time. So I pursued a PhD.

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I’m interested in the uncertainty that humans bring to energy systems. In engineering, we primarily think about uncertainty quantification (UQ) in physical systems. The aerodynamics or fluid flow folks work on these mathematical techniques. I’m working on how we can think about UQ for humans — looking at the intersection of computational work, sustainable design, and human behavior for clean energy systems, to create new solutions to our climate problem. We have the technology we need to get to our climate goals — so I think it’s a people problem. Policy, behavior, all of the above. But engineers don’t think enough about those factors.

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When we were kids on vacation, my dad would ask us mental math or science questions that he’d come up with. We had to answer them, and he would give us points. If we got to so many points, we got an ice cream sundae at the end of the vacation. My dad is a professor in civil engineering — that shaped me. Now I can’t imagine being anything else other than an engineer. There’s this beautiful curiosity, drive for knowledge, ever-changing research, industry opportunities, and ability to make a change in government and policy. You are empowered to choose your path, and personally, I think STEM is the best way to springboard into doing anything you want.”