Lab Notebook

May 24th: 

Today’s MARC Poster Session was awesome. Presenting my research proposal poster on carbon offsetting, I interacted with many curious attendees, answering their insightful questions and explaining the concepts covered in my poster. One memorable question was regarding the reliability of my proposed methods which tied nicely to the research I am hoping to do this summer regarding a satellite that is able to track methane emissions called MethaneSAT. Reflecting on the session, I’m proud of my presentation skills and my ability to simplify concepts. This experience has not only sharpened my ability to articulate complex ideas but also helped me deeper my own knowledge of the field.

October 22nd: 

This summer, I made substantial progress on my MARC project at Marin Academy, where we are developing a detailed database of over 1,200 carbon offset projects in India. Collaborating with Dr. Sonali from NYU and Mook Bangalore, we focused on categorizing the projects, examining how these offsets are measured, and investigating potential double-counting issues related to India's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This meticulous work not only sharpened my data management skills but also deepened my understanding of environmental science. Despite the complexity of the data, the potential for this database to influence transparent and effective climate action keeps me motivated and eager to dive deeper into the research.

December 13th: 

I have had multiple meetings since the past entry and I have one on the books for next week. Our team is moving forward with the database and are making good progress. 

January 30th: 

Happy New Year! Our team is off to a great start and is making major progress on the database. We are nearing the stages of finalizing data collection and are moving towards structuring our analysis framework as well as the paper. Super excited to finish the data collection as it has been a long and tedious process and am looking forward to the analysis!

March 14th: 

This month has been a turning point in my MARC project as I dove deeper into data analysis using Python. After weeks of data cleaning and standardization, I began using tools like Pandas and Matplotlib to group entities by ownership, project type, and buyer country. At first, it was definitely a learning curve — debugging scripts and getting charts to look right took some trial and error. But by the end of the month, I was able to generate clean, informative visualizations that actually revealed patterns in the data.

One highlight was creating a figure that showed the overwhelming dominance of renewable energy projects compared to other sectors like transportation and waste. Seeing the trends come to life through visuals was a satisfying moment — it helped translate thousands of rows of data into something that could actually spark conversation.

Looking back, learning to use Python for this kind of applied research has been one of the most empowering parts of the project so far. I’ve gained confidence not only in my technical skills but also in my ability to interpret complex datasets and tell a clear story through figures.

May 29th: 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present my full MARC project at the final Colloquium. After months of data collection, analysis, and writing, it was both surreal and rewarding to share my findings in front of an audience. My presentation focused on the structural opacity of India’s carbon offset market and how that reflects larger global power imbalances in climate finance.

It was challenging to distill such a complex project into a 12-minute talk, but I focused on keeping it clear, visual, and impactful. I used custom graphics to explain things like the dominance of renewable energy projects and the geographic asymmetry between buyers and project hosts. One slide zoomed in on a single project — an improved cookstove program — to show how abstract carbon credits translate into real-world activity. I think this helped the audience understand how my dataset connects to actual communities and decisions.

The Q&A afterward pushed me to think more critically. It was validating to be able to talk about the importance of investing in resilience and rethinking the incentive structures of climate finance — not just relying on offsets to fix the problem.

Overall, this was a full-circle moment for the project. I started out skeptical of offsets, and through months of research, I uncovered real flaws — but also real opportunities for reform. Presenting those ideas publicly made it all feel real, and it reminded me why research like this matters.