Isabella Lu portrait.jpg

Isabella Lu

Computer Science × Environmental Engineering — Columbia SEAS '28

About

I'm a computer science undergrad at Columbia, minoring in environmental engineering. I'm interested in the intersections of computer science and climate change. Recently, that's meant building instruments for electrochemistry and ML emulators for land-surface models in the Arctic.

Research & work experience

2023 — present
Zn plating · Z′ vs −Z″
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
SUMMER@SEAS
2026

An automated electrochemical system for zinc electrodeposition

Building a three-electrode cell with closed-loop imaging and QCM mass-change feedback in a choline chloride/urea deep eutectic solvent, working toward a process–impedance map that links plating conditions to EIS signatures for real-time charger compensation.

Python · QCM · EIS
Arctic fieldwork images/research-arctic.jpg
NSF LEAP-STC
× NCAR, REU
2025

Emulating snow–shrub interactions in the Arctic

Designed nested Gaussian Process Regressor emulators for snow and plant processes in the Community Land Model under Dr. Linnia Hawkins. Presented at AGU, the CESM Summer Student Conference, and Columbia's Undergraduate Data Science & AI Research Fair.

Python · GPR · CLM
LEAP Pangeo JupyterHub platform
NSF LEAP-STC
Data & Compute Intern

Data Management for the LEAP Pangeo JupyterHub

As the Data & Compute intern for NSF LEAP-STC, I help maintain the user and data-administration side of the LEAP Pangeo JupyterHub platform — debugging offboarding automation, reconciling directory metadata against a live researcher registry, and cleaning the records.

Python · JupyterHub · Google Cloud
North Pacific chlorophyll data images/research-ocean.jpg
UC Santa Cruz
Ocean Sciences
2023–24

North Pacific chlorophyll × sea temperature

Analyzed CMIP6 chlorophyll fields across the North Pacific in R — time-series decomposition, global projections, and quantile linear regression with prewhitening — and checked simulation reliability against satellite observation.

R · CMIP6 · Data Analysis

Sidequests

My other interests at Columbia
Columbia BJJ images/sidequest-bjj.jpg
BJJ

Vice President @ Columbia BJJ

I train jiujitsu with my best friends 3 times a week. I've automated some of our documentation pipelines. As secretary the year before, I handled most communication and social media. I also sit on the Club Sports Governing Board as martial-arts rep this year, handling communication between Columbia Club Sports and our martial arts clubs.

Columbia WICS graphics images/sidequest-wics.jpg
WICS

Publicity Lead, Columbia WICS

I design the Instagram brand system— palette, fonts, templates— for Women in Computer Science, and lead graphics for DivHacks (2025), Columbia's largest fall hackathon. If you've seen a WICS or DivHacks sticker before, it's likely one of my designs :)

TASA event images/sidequest-tasa.jpg
TASA

Organizing Committee, Publicity, TASA

I design social graphics and take event photography for the Taiwanese American Student Association's cultural programming.