Meet Veronika
Veronika is a pioneer UCF alumna from the first graduating LAS class of 2016. She majored in Earth and Environmental Sciences in Freiburg and started her graduate studies at Penn State University in August 2016. Beyond courses in her Major BioRenewable Systems and in Operations Research, she is working as a PhD candidate at Prof. Tom Richard’s lab.
In her studies and research, Veronika is focusing on creating a decision support tool that would assist in spatial and temporal planning of farm operations based not only on economic operations, but also on environmental and social factors. This includes desk and field work as well as travels: a Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals in San Francisco, summer research at the Idaho National Lab, the annual conference of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in Spokane, Washington.
After passing her comprehensive exams, Veronika is now (2018) writing her dissertation at the Idaho National Lab (INL). In her dissertation, she is developing a framework that can help farmers decide which crop to place where on the field based on the farmer’s priorities and based on sustainability assessment of the choices. Her scientific approach is transdisciplinary, including landscape ecology, sustainability science, agricultural engineering, economic theory, operations research; as well as talking to farmers about what matters to them on their farms.
Besides that, Veronika is doing a minor in operations research, which is a subfield of industrial engineering that develops mathematical tools for decision-making and optimization. She visits conferences, co-organizes a workshop in the Chesapeake Bay on how to overcome the water pollution challenge and organizes a team to take part in the EcoChallenge.
Update Summer 2020:
Thankfully, Veronika keeps us posted on what she is doing. Congratulations, dear Dr. Veronika Vazhnik, on completing your doctorate! We wish you all the best for your start in Boise, Idaho as ISTP-CAES Fellow this autumn.
“I am in Idaho, continuing my work at the Software and Data Science department of Idaho National Laboratory. Starting in September, I will move to Boise to be Idaho Science and Technology Policy – Center for Advanced Energy Studies (ISTP-CAES) Fellow.
That will be the first year of such a program in Idaho, but I am comfortable with being a guinea pig, and am excited about the new opportunity. It will place me at one of the state agencies like Governor’s office of Energy, or Department of Commerce. I will contribute with my subject-matter expertise, while learn how to provide the most useful information for policy decisions.
Such a step, of course, has been only possible because I have graduated. I was lucky that I could defend my dissertation back in February 2020 in person, but all the following steps took place remotely. I still wanted to celebrate, and my rented graduation gown arrived because I ordered it before the pandemic hit, so a friend took some ‘distanced graduation’ photos.
My dissertation is now available at the PSU library and I am working to publish the chapters ASAP.”
Dr. Veronika Vazhnik received the Outstanding Dissertation Award by the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State for her dissertation. And she is still active in sustainability-related volunteering, like Earth Week.