Paloma Lenz

Paloma Lenz is a senior in Pierson College studying environmental engineering with a concentration in architecture. Her Chilean heritage informs her focus on ecologically conscious urban development, scientific innovation, and poetic resistance amid Chile’s sociopolitical tensions.

She seeks to build sustainable partnerships between New Haven and Valdivian non-profit organizations. In New Haven, she contributes to the Neighborhood Housing Services’ placemaking, green space revitalization, and community-building initiatives. In Valdivia, she volunteered with the Corporación Humedales de Angachilla to implement a pilot phytoremediation system in a neighborhood impacted by polluted stormwater runoff, and collaborated with the Laboratorio Biomateriales de Valdivia to create mycelium-based biomaterials.

At Yale, Paloma works in the Gentner and Elimelech Labs, studying indoor air quality dynamics and single-ion selective membrane technologies. She envisions a future where biology, urban design, and engineering converge to sustain socially and environmentally just communities.