2025 UMass Lowell Rist Institute Initiatives Video Transcript

In the Merrimack Valley, UMass Lowell. Will leverage its expertise in advanced manufacturing and flexible electronics for climate tech applications. The RIST Institute for Sustainability & Energy at UMass Lowell exists to solve grand challenges and opportunities across the climate, energy and sustainability spaces. We're named after an alum, Brian Rist, who graduated from UMass Lowell in the 70s. He invested in establishing the sustainability program with a view to making sure that business and entrepreneurial decisions were part and parcel of everything that we do.

Industry partners are critical for us at UMass Lowell. Over the last three years, we've been directly responsible for bringing in over $120 million in external funding towards the university. We're working hand in hand with our industry partners to create these transformative opportunities for our students while they're here at UMass Lowell. And that's internships, grad programs, co-ops. So each year we hire up to 20 students to formally work with the Rist Institute. Just a phenomenal environment that these students are coming into. 

I think that the RIST institute is not only about people who are in sustainability or majoring in environmental science, it's more about an interdisciplinary approach where they bring people from a bunch of different majors together to work on a certain problem and work on environmental sustainability. And no matter what major you are in, I feel like you can always tie that into energy transformation and sustainability.

It gives me a well-rounded knowledge on sustainability, but I think more importantly, my coursework trains us to be community leaders. I think that's one of the most important things that I've been gaining through this experience. From my perspective, one of the most rewarding things that we do, and we want to create more opportunity for these students, is not so long ago, we were a first generation college students ourselves, and everybody needs a leg up or someone to give them opportunity.

I feel so fortunate that this is part of what UMass Lowell does, that we're very fortunate position to be able to continue to invest in our students and make sure that they're going on to have a very, very successful career and life, outside of UMass Lowell.