Sumukhi Prasad is a rising third-year PhD student in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. While pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, she conducted air pollution-justice research. Inspired by this experience and her parents’ upbringings in heavily polluted regions of India, she pursued a Master of Science (MS) in Environmental Engineering at University of California, Berkeley (UCB) to iterate upon her air quality knowledge and technical skillset. She was selected as a recipient of the Environmental Engineers of the Future scholarship, for which she was funded by a consortium of companies to pursue this MS degree. After working for a year at CDM Smith as a Water Resources Engineer, she returned to UCB to pursue her PhD in Environmental Engineering. As a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), Sumukhi’s PhD research aims to quantify the spatial and temporal variability in air pollution exposure, specifically from refinery emissions, in Martinez, California. She is collaborating with a grassroots advocacy group called Healthy Martinez to hold refineries accountable for air pollution violations in the Martinez community. Sumukhi strives to conduct community-based participatory research that is synergistic, community-first, and collective.
Sumukhi Saloni Prasad
