DANIELA MURAWCZYK
High School: Crystal Springs Uplands School
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Living in northern California amidst drought, wildfires, and hazardous smoke taught senior Daniela Murawczyk about the climate crisis early on. But when her uncle lost his home to the 2018 wildfires, the reality of global warming hit even closer to home, deepening her understanding and spurring her into action. “I started reading voraciously about climate change, interviewed environmental experts, wrote and published research papers, established a Green Team at school, and joined local Environmental Councils,” she says. This quick action was just a starting point for the extensive work she’s since done for the green movement. For the last four years, Daniela has designed, coded, tested, and constructed her TerraSense Soil Moisture Sensors—devices that detect the level of soil moisture for any given plant by measuring capacitance, or the ability of an object to store electric charge. This triggers an LED light to flash a specific color, alerting the caretaker when the plant needs more or less water. This innovation earned Daniela the Earth Prize Scholar award in 2024.
Now, besides teaching her peers how to build their own TerraSense Soil Moisture Sensors, she serves as president of the Green Team at Crystal Springs Uplands School’s upper school. A pioneer of change, Daniela implemented her school’s first waste management system which includes composting and recycling, advocated for compostable materials, and led all-school beach clean ups. Doubling the club’s membership since inception, she has partnered with her school’s leadership team to ensure that the change her group is working on will last. Outside of school, she is a founding member of the Bay Area Youth Environmental Leadership Network and the California Academy of Sciences Youth Action for the Planet council. As a part of these groups, she has been able to grow as a leader and implement change at an even broader level. During her three internships at Stanford University, Daniela has helped to design and construct various devices to further her scientific pursuits, including a custom conductivity, temperature, and depth ocean profiler, a low-power nuclear quadrupole resonance detection device, and 31 other electronic circuits including various amplifiers and regulators.
Citing her family background as one of the things that motivates her, Daniela looks to her Cuban grandfather when she needs an extra dose of inspiration. “I am the proud granddaughter of a political refugee who emigrated to the US from Cuba at 17, and became an environmental engineer, dedicating his life to solving problems he observed in under-resourced communities and the world at large,” she says. As the only Latina in her honors classes, she is even more driven to succeed and show her peers what they, too, are capable of. With environmental issues disproportionately impacting the Hispanic community and other marginalized communities around the world, she hopes to continue designing and building tools that address climate concerns like drought, lack of access to clean water, and poor air quality.
Beginning this fall, Daniela will continue her studies at Stanford University. There, she looks forward to studying electrical engineering and earth systems to continue pushing for change across the globe.
