Catherine Nowakowski

Junior Class of 2017

Environmental Engineering

From Grasso Technical High School, Bio-Sciences and Environmental Technologies

My name is Catherine Nowakowski but I go by Catrina and since coming to UConn my favorite class has been NRE 4695, Sustainable Urban Ecosystems.  In this class I learned about how urban areas developed and where they are moving to in the future.

For this coming summer I have received a SURF grant to complete research with Professor Marina Astitha. We will be collaborating with the EPA to create a regression model to predict water quality parameters in lakes.

This past summer I participated in the Green Program where I received the nationally recognized Leave No Trace certification and was trained in leadership skill and how to lead a backpacking trip.  This experience took place in Iceland with South Icelandic Adventure.

As a  freshman and a sophomore I was a member of the residential learning community, Connecting With the Arts and through this I program I have met some amazing people.  The program helped me to find people that I would not normally of meet with an engineering schedule.  Many of my friends from the community are majoring in theater or music education, or they just like to make music and art and I am very thankful for the chance to live with all of them.  We did things organized as a group, like learning community field day and movie nights, and we do small things like eat dinner and form occasional coloring circles or just sitting together while we do home work.  I am also a part of UConns club sport sailing team, every Friday we venture down to Avery Point to practice and on weekends we attend Regattas where we race against other college teams.

Click on the photo below to read about the work I did with UConn’s GK-12 mentor program!