A Rice University undergraduate student and two recent alumni in environmental engineering have been awarded this year’s Greene Prize in Environmental Writing.
The recipients are Kathryn Dale, junior; Johnathan Roberts; and Hannah Vincent, who earned her B.A. in ecology and evolutionary biology in 2020 and her master of civil and environmental engineering degree in 2022. All were students in CEVE 307, “Energy and the Environment,” taught by Daniel Cohan, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE). The course features projects mentored by energy industry professionals.
Their 30-page paper is titled “ConnectGen Solar Energy Project: Final Report.” ConnectGen is a utility-scale renewable energy development company based in Houston. The paper examines whether the company should pursue any of the seven solar energy zones in three states being auctioned off by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The group’s mentor was Amanda (MacDonald) Flores, who earned her B.S. in CEE from Rice in 2016, and now works as a project manager for ConnectGen.
The Greene Prize was endowed by the family of David Greene ’93 in 1998 to recognize Rice students who compose “exceptional environmental writing.” The judges were Richard Johnson, director of the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management, and professor in the practice of environmental studies in sociology, and Joseph Campana, William Shakespeare Professor of English and director of the Center for Environmental Studies.