Member Spotlights

After a long day of classes, Francesca Ross recharges in the comfort of her dorm room. As the sunset seeps in through her window, bringing out the natural beauty of the rocks scattered along her windowsill, her room is illuminated with shades of rose gold. The posters on her wall give a sneak peek of her college life, lined with signed concert setlists and film photos of her and her friends. 

Francesca is bundled up in her bed, scrolling endlessly on Pinterest. The image is something burnt out college students know all too well, alleviating stress through mindless scrolling on social media. But Francesca isn’t wasting time, in fact, she’s investing it with every scroll she takes. She’s found half of what she needs for her hobby: a creative idea. Now, she just needs her sewing machine. 

As she adds photos to her Pinterest boards and mentally bookmarks ideas in her head, she’s already brainstorming. Could she do that in a different medium? What preexisting piece can she upcycle? How can she turn this vision into reality? With her mind racing, she rushes into her suite’s common room, unboxing her sewing machine and deciding which fabric is lucky enough to be utilized. 

Francesca, a senior studying pursuing a bachelors in earth and environmental science, a masters in energy and the environment, and a minor in environmental analysis and policy at Boston University, continues her day-to-day learning about environmentalism and sustainability outside of her classes. Her learning transcends into her everyday hobby: creating sustainable fashion. 

For Francesca, living a sustainable lifestyle was all she knew, especially when it came to clothing. When she naturally outgrew specific styles — or the clothing itself — she kept all her clothes instead of discarding them. So, when COVID-19 forced society into isolation, the piles of unused clothing finally had a purpose: to jumpstart Francesca’s new hobby. With the help of her mom’s sewing machine, she got to work. She began to make little projects, starting with an outfit for her dog and a sail for a smaller sailboat (a project that ended up breaking her mom’s machine). She slowly embarked on a self-taught journey, one that strengthened her artistic style. 

“I don't think, even now, that I have the skills to actually make something properly,” said Francesca. “That's why I think all of my pieces are so unique, because I just experiment.”

Over time, the sewing not only became muscle memory, but instinctive as well. Her hobby became second nature. Shifting into the present day, her hobby signifies something different to her, mostly because of her current environmental passions. 

“I feel like me making this stuff now was more beneficial than me making this stuff back then,” said Francesca. “Now, I'm more passionate about sustainability. So, me making this clothing has more of a meaning than just a hobby that I picked up during the pandemic.”

Francesca has grown since her broken-sewing-machine incident — spending her free time making clothes for Fabrio Magazine, a Boston University magazine focusing on showcasing sustainable fashion. She holds a strong position in the magazine, creating infographics to promote sustainable fashion and a sustainable lifestyle, but most importantly, she found a place to channel her artistic fashionable energy. With no urgent deadlines, and no one telling her to create pieces, her clothing production comes from an internal source of motivation and inspiration, Francesca said. 

Francesca collaborated with Violet Mee, a member of Epsilon Eta and Fabrio Magazine, on her first Fabrio project. Fabrio Magazine described it as a transformation of “seemingly proper garments into casual and unique styles while salvaging traditional silhouettes and the concept of formality.” 

This project, consisting of a top made out of lined up ties and a white button up top with a sewed denim pocket (from one of Chessie’s middle school skirts), is a new take on“business casual” attire. 

“People don’t really dress down business stuff, it’s more like, you only wear this for work or you only wear this for an interview and then it goes back in your closet,” said Francesca. “So we were like, what if we found ways to make it more casual and inclusive? That’s kind of our vision.”

After creating these pieces, she worked with Violet and brainstormed more potential designs, culminating in a photoshoot in the Financial District. Although Francesca’s been creating original pieces since 2020, seeing her work publicized and celebrated is still surreal.

“We didn’t expect actual photos to be taken of our stuff and seeing it on their Instagram… it was really cool to see my stuff on their page, to see it put somewhere,” said Francesca.

Her published sustainable clothing serves as a bigger meaning, one that showcases how sustainability can branch into various aspects of our lives — and how easy incorporating it can be. 

“A lot of times people think of sustainability or environmentalism as something that’s not achievable,” Francesca said. “But in reality, it could be down to the smallest thing like swapping out the silverware that you throw out and replacing them with reusables stuff. Even one change could be so impactful. As I showed through the clothing I make… using something for a different purpose or like rewearing something differently could be a whole different style.” 

As Francesca looks towards the future, she can’t exactly pinpoint what it’ll look like, she said. Where does clothing fit into her future? Perhaps it’ll be a side gig, or she’ll apply to be a part of another magazine. She enjoys being given options, she said. But for now? She’ll scroll through Pinterest and continue mentally brainstorming for her next sustainable clothing project. 

At 5 a.m on a Monday, Julia Westwood wakes up with an abrupt start. Feeling like the only person awake at this ungodly hour, she realizes two things at this moment. First, it’s 5 a.m. (and she did not expect to be awake at five in the morning.), and the second thing: she forgot to feed her fish.

Normally such a forgetful action wouldn’t involve Julia grabbing whatever socks and shoes she could find and bursting out the door, but in this case, Julia wasn’t talking about her own fish — these fish belonged to a research lab she works in. 

“I was in a panic. I was just like, ‘How did I forget? Are they gonna be OK? None of them can be dead!’” said Julia. 

As she runs down the infamous Commonwealth Avenue, one thing remains clear: Julia would do anything, including rushing to the lab at 5 a.m. in a spontaneous, unplanned frenzy to keep her fish alive. Good news: they were perfectly safe (which she realized when she got to the lab and saw them sleeping, hugged in their anemones). Her act of selflessness and dedication is not an isolated event. In fact, this relentless dedication to marine science and sustainability is one that guides her through every opportunity and experience in her environmental career. 

While her impromptu 5 a.m. run was an unexpected event, Julia, a Boston University sophomore majoring in marine science with a minor in G.I.S. and remote sensing, is familiar with waking up that early. Last summer, Julia had her 5 a.m. alarms set and her audiobooks ready for her 70-mile morning commute to her internship. She spent her summer in Texas, her familiar home state, but in a different way than the rest of her summers. For three days a week, Julia would tackle this morning commute to work for Dr. Laura Jurgens’s Lab on Marine Community and Ecosystem Resilience at A&M Galveston as a volunteer research assistant. 

For many, the early hours and long commute, alongside the fact that it’s an unpaid experience, would be enough to send people running. But for Julia? She said she never second guessed it.

“I used this as a learning opportunity because I knew I was never going to get something like this ever again,” said Julia.

This job opening itself wasn’t an easy find. After relentlessly sending out internship applications and being met with no’s (or oftentimes, silence), Julia decided she needed to create opportunities for herself. She said she used these rejections as motivation to create an invaluable experience she wouldn’t have been able to do anywhere else.

“I reached out to a bunch of labs, and one responded saying they had an opening,” said Julia. “And I was like, ‘Yes! Sign me up, I’ll be there. I’ll do anything.’” 

It was due to her passion for marine science that landed her this summer position. For the rest of the summer, she spent it gaining research experience. She was working one-on-one with a Ph.D. student, helping her with her dissertation work on oyster pathogens in Galveston Bay. 

For this internship, there were three routine days. The first was a field day, one where the team took a boat out to find, shuck, and measure healthy oysters, alongside recording scientific information like salinity of water and dissolved oxygen levels. The second was involved in-lab analysis of these oysters, which started with Julia and the other interns breaking the oysters apart with mallets in order to retrieve a muscle sample and gather blister worm data, to then refrigerate the oyster samples for a week. The third and final day revolved around unrolling the muscle samples to better see evidence of dermo, a parasite that rapidly infects and kills oysters, by using different microscopy techniques and imaging. 

On top of the hands-on experience, Julia was able to contribute to meaningful research: one that directly impacts not only humans, but her local community. According to Houstonia Magazine, a recall was issued for oysters specifically harvested in the southeastern part of Galveston Bay after various accounts of gastrointestinal illnesses from oyster consumption. 

“That research was really important because the oyster aquaculture industry in Houston is huge,” Julia said. “Pathogens have a much bigger role than we realize, especially to human consumers as well.”

Her research experience not only contributed to her local community: it also ignited a newfound scientific curiosity within Julia. 

“[This research] really sparked my interest in this [specific] field because there’s just so many different things you can study in the ocean,” said Julia. “Having these opportunities and being able to learn about everything, it’s really exciting to me.”

By finding her niche through her summer internship and through her current research work for Peter Buston's Evolutionary Ecology lab, analyzing breeding and behavioral patterns of clownfish, Julia is more sure than ever in her future as a marine biologist.

“I have never wanted to be anything else,” said Julia. “Everything that I have done, for as long as I can remember, has been in relation to marine science. I remember doing a fifth grade project on this. It asked, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I was like, I want to be a marine biologist.”

Inevitably, she said her passion for marine science grew as she got older. On every family vacation, she begged to visit the aquarium or see the ocean. In each of her marine science classes, she found her existing knowledge of marine science expanding with each new topic the class explored. Julia slowly realized that after learning more about marine science, her love for it intensifying with every experience, all she wants to do is teach others. 

“My goal in life is just to educate as many people as I can,” Julia said. “I want to highlight the exciting, interesting, and cool aspects of the ocean and educate more people about how awesome it is, not necessarily that it’s a place to fear.”

The fear that people hold for the ocean, specifically due to the media’s depiction of marine life, inhibits the public to care about it like they should, she said. 

“There’s just so much we don’t know, and I think that’s what turns people off, unfortunately, is because it’s not well known,” Julia said. “The thought process is, ‘since it’s not well known, why do I need to care about it?’”

As passionate as Julia is for the ocean and its ecosystems, she said she recognizes that marine life is something people take for granted, negatively harming it with “blissful ignorance.” Through her newfound goal of educating others, she said she hopes to bring the beautiful ocean she knows and loves to the forefront of peoples’ minds.

“Almost every breath that you take comes from the ocean, and we need the ocean for everything that we do,” Julia said. 

Julia’s statement is no exaggeration. According to the National Ocean Service, the ocean produces over 50% of the world’s oxygen, provides transportation for 76% of all U.S. trade, and creates $282 billion in goods and services. In addition, it provides food, medicine, recreation, and much more ecosystem services. 

As Julia sipped on her tea and unraveled more and more about her love for marine science, including showing off her laptop sticker of a shark in a bikini to destigmatize sharks as terrifying predators, it was evident that this passion that’s stayed with her through her life is continuing to guide her now. Although the uncertainty and climate anxiety makes even the most experienced and educated freeze up, Julia said she embraces the uncertainty and finds reason to continue because of it. 

“There’s so much to learn and so much to explore that we have yet to really figure out, and it makes me excited,” Julia said. “It’s just one thing that I know has always been there and it’s something that I literally can’t imagine not doing. And it just makes me really excited.”

Her dedication to educate people, alongside her lifelong conviction to be a marine biologist leaves one certain fact: Julia Westwood is a name to look out for.