I'm an environmental scientist finishing my B.S. at UT Austin, focused on water quality and climate resilience. I like the unglamorous parts of sustainability — the spreadsheets, the field samples, the 7 a.m. stakeholder meetings — because that's where the real change actually gets made.
“The most sustainable solution is the one people will actually use.”
Data & GIS · City of Austin
The Watershed Protection Department had five years of water-quality data locked in spreadsheets nobody could read fast enough to brief the city council before a meeting. I cleaned and joined the datasets, built the spatial model that flags creeks trending unhealthy after storms, designed the dashboard from scratch, and trained two staff members to maintain it after my internship ended.
Research
Regional water boards knew droughts hurt aquifer recharge but lacked a clear, spatial picture of where the loss was worst. I processed a decade of satellite imagery, modeled recharge zones, and produced the maps that anchored my undergraduate thesis and were presented to three regional water boards.
Sustainability
UT was watering on a fixed timer, including right before rain, wasting thousands of gallons a week. I organized student volunteers, set up soil-moisture sensors across four landscape zones, and pitched facilities management on a smarter schedule — now adopted campus-wide.
Publication
Existing models underestimated nutrient spikes after the intense, short storms becoming more common in Central Texas. I built the figures and ran the spatial analysis linking rainfall intensity to downstream nutrient concentration — since cited in a regional stormwater planning memo.
Read the paper →Community
City water reports are technical and English-only, so many residents couldn't tell whether their tap water was safe. I wrote bilingual materials, ran six workshops reaching more than 200 residents, and built a one-page "how to read your water report" guide two neighborhood associations still use.
“Naomi took a tangled dataset three of us had given up on and turned it into the clearest water-quality map our department has ever brought to the city council.”
Dr. Alicia Fuentes · Associate Professor of Environmental Science, UT Austin
About
I grew up in San Angelo, in West Texas, watching a lake I swam in as a kid shrink a little more every summer. Nobody around me talked about it in scientific terms; they just knew the water was going away. That gap — between what the data says and what people feel and do — is the thing I've spent my degree trying to close.
At UT I've learned that the most useful environmental scientist in the room usually isn't the one with the fanciest model. It's the one who can take a tangled dataset and hand a city planner a map they actually understand. I'm equally comfortable knee-deep in a creek collecting samples and in a conference room explaining what those samples mean to people who control the budget. I'm looking for a role in environmental or sustainability consulting where I can keep doing both — bonus points if it involves water.
Education
B.S. Environmental Science, minor in GIS — The University of Texas at Austin
Expected May 2026 · GPA 3.8 · Hydrology, Environmental Policy, Remote Sensing, Water Resources Management
Capabilities
Get in touch
Graduating May 2026 · open to full-time environmental consulting and city sustainability roles.