Student Profile: Molly O’Connor


style=”width: 225px; height: 322px;” title=”Ming Lu ’12, left, and Molly O’Connor ’11, right,
collect soil samples for laboratory analysis in Botswana. ” />ACADEMICS

“My two favorite classes have been CEE 307 Field Ecohydrology (which is taught in Kenya,
where I spent the spring semester of my junior year) and CEE 305 Environ-mental Fluid Mechanics. My
independent work is on turbulence in a sparse plant canopy. I conducted field research in Kenya to begin
this project. The summer before my junior year I worked in Botswana with Professor Kelly Caylor’s
group (with funding from the University’s Grand Challenges initiative). For that project, I helped
study the effects of rainfall and climate on root depth and lateral extent.”

WHY

“Being able to work closely with faculty and graduate students on these projects has been
invaluable to my academic growth, and this mentoring is one of the most rewarding parts of my education in
civil and environmental engineering.”

EXTRACURRICULAR

“My favorite extracurricular activity at Princeton is working with the Student Volunteers
Council. I am a project coordinator for one of the tutoring projects. We tutor at Young Scholars Institute
in Trenton weekly, and I really enjoy working with the students.”