LEADERSHIP 2021-2022
Kristen Riedinger, President, Water Night Director
Kristen is a Master of Science student at MIT's Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Her research involves collecting water, soil, and produce samples from local Massachusetts farms and analyzing them for a list of potential chemical contaminants. This year, she is excited to learn about new water innovations and ideas with regards to coastal cities and ecosystems as part of Water Summit planning, especially in response to climate change and other environmental impacts.
Autumn Deitrick, Water Summit Co-Director
Autumn Deitrick is a first-year PhD student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering. Prior to coming to MIT, she completed her B.S. in Civil Engineering at Penn State as a Schreyer Honors College Scholar. Her research focuses on understanding hydrodynamics in mangrove forests, which are lauded for their blue carbon storage potential. She is also one of this year’s MIT Water Summit Co-Directors. Outside of the lab, Autumn enjoys listening to her favorite climate change and science podcasts while running along the Charles River.
James Brice, Water Summit Co-Director
James is currently a graduate student pursuing his Masters of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to MIT, he worked as a zookeeper, responsible for the husbandry and welfare of both terrestrial and aquatic animal species. Pulling from this professional knowledge and a bachelors in applied physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, James explores the intersection of design, human development, and conservation through research areas such as climate resilience, coastal adaptation, and urban ecology.
Jen Shafer, Water Innovation Prize Co-Director
Jen is a second-year M.S. candidate in the Integrated Design & Management program where students with design, business, and engineering backgrounds come together to tackle complex problems using human-centered design. Before beginning her master's, Jen worked in consulting then the beauty industry in roles relating to analytics, people strategy, learning & development, and operations. At MIT Jen is focused on service design, particularly the intersection of design and jobs, joblessness, and worker's rights. It was Jen's upbringing that imprinted upon her the importance of water research and innovation – she grew up in a multi-generational ranching family in central New Mexico where drought conditions are a fact of life. Jen has a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Rice University and enjoys exploring State and National Parks at every possible opportunity.
Michael Gangemi, Water Innovation Prize Co-Director
Michael is a second-year MBA candidate at MIT Sloan School of Management pursuing the Sustainability Certificate. Michael began his career as a private markets investment analyst for BlackRock's Special Credit Opportunities team in New York. After two years at BlackRock, he expanded his business skill set by transitioning to a TMT strategy consulting role with boutique firm, Altman Vilandrie. He came to MIT to pursue opportunities at the intersection of technology and climate, and spent the last year away from Sloan as the Product Manager for Sound Ag’s epigenetics-based crop-breeding platform. He is excited to return to campus to continue working with startups in the food, agriculture, energy, and water industries. Michael graduated from Vanderbilt University, where he received a B.Sc. with honors in International Economics & Entrepreneurship and Human & Organizational Development. He loves living in a city where he is able to spend more of his time outside sailing and playing frozen-water sports after spending the last half-decade in New York.
Jessica Singh, Water Innovation Prize Co-Director
Bio and picture coming soon!
Daniel Alejandro Rosales Roche, Hackathon Co-Director
Daniel is in the Executive MBA program, and works as a project manager at Earthworks, LLC based in Connecticut, USA. He holds a PhD in Geophysics from Stanford University. Daniel has 15 years of experience developing technologies to advance earth sciences applications to civil engineering. He is an experienced geophysicist and earth scientist with a record in the field of high- definition seismic imaging techniques to solve challenging shallow marine subsurface problems. He is skilled in infrastructure mapping, near-surface geology, subsurface imaging, project management.
Manish Srivastava, Hackathon Co-Director
Manish is in the Executive MBA program. He has 15 years of Software Development experience working on telecom and cloud technologies. He is currently leading the global R&D for a major telecom software company, Mavenir Systems, based out of Dallas, Texas, USA. Manish is a passionate technologist and excited in building new products and platform aiming to improve the world and find solutions for complex problems globally.
Lai Wa Chu, Junior Water Scholars Director and Club Student Sustainability Coalition Representative
Lai Wa is a second year undergraduate student at MIT whose intended major is Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is currently in the process of figuring out where her passion lies and interested in exploring the topic of climate change and sustainability from a multidisciplinary lens. As the club’s representative in the Student Sustainability Coalition (SSC), her role is to communicate the club’s goals to the other sustainability-related groups on campus when collaborating on projects. Besides being involved in the Water Club, Lai Wa is also a part of Engineers Without Borders (MIT Chapter) and two student-run theater groups.
Devashish Pratap Gokhale, Lecture Series Chair
Devashish is a PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering at MIT, with broad interests in developing soft materials for social good. His current research in the Doyle group focuses on making low-cost sustainable polymers for the elimination of emerging contaminants from water. Before coming to MIT, Devashish studied chemical engineering at IIT Madras in India, where his research focused on micro and nano-materials. When he is not working with water, Devashish enjoys swimming in it.
Anselmo Cassiano, Lecture Series Co-Chair
Anselmo Cassiano has a MBA in corporate communication FIA/USP. He is specialist in Negotiation, Mediation by Program on Negotiation (PON) Harvard Law School, Specialist in Crisis Emergency and Business Continuity by MIT. Specialist in Conflict Management by Princeton University and Strategy, Conflict and Cooperation by Harvard Economics. He also as 1st Lieutenant worked for the United Nations as UN Peacekeepers Force in East Timor. He loves sports and he was MIT Shotokan Karate Captain for several years and now he is MIT Triathlon Captain. Also he is a volunteer at MIT co-ed Sailing program since 2017 and as an original Brazilian is crazy about Soccer. He studies as Research Affiliate Water Diplomacy at MIT and Expert in Humanitarian Response to conflict zone and Refugee rights by Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Amnesty International. He has been a member of Harvard Law School Negotiators and Judge of USA Stockholm Junior Water Prize since 2018. the World’s most prestigious Water Award. He has been a member of MIT Water since 2017 as co-chairman of the Lecture Series.
Delight Nweneka, Club Student Sustainability Coalition Representative
Delight Nweneka is a third-year undergraduate student at MIT studying Biological Engineering with prospective minors in Environment & Sustainability and Computer Science. She is interested in issues surrounding sustainability, resource misallocation, process inefficiency and the resulting waste. She enjoys exploring innovative methods to improve existing technology in ways that are sustainable and accessible. As a representative in the Student Sustainability Coalition (SSC), her role is to communicate the club’s goals to the other sustainability-related groups on campus and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Ippolyti Dellatolas, Treasurer and Club Student Sustainability Coalition Representative
Ippolyti is a graduate student in the MIT Mechanical Engineering department. Ippolyti’s research aims at understanding and preventing the uneven flow that occurs when rain infiltrates hydrophobic soils vertically. Such uneven flow impedes water retention, optimal filtering of chemicals and can trigger catastrophic landslides. Outside of the lab, she is involved with the MIT Water Club, GSC Sustain, and the MIT Office of Sustainability. When not participating in heated discussions on sustainability and environmental justice, Ippolyti enjoys classic movies, live music, and summers in Greece, her country of origin.