IAEE Scholarship Recipients
2023 Scholarship Recipient
Kara Holmstrom
Kara is a senior at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) in Calmar, majoring in Business Administration and Construction Management. Kara's interest in the energy efficiency industry was sparked when she managed the renovation of the office building where she worked in 2007 in San Francisco. She was captivated by construction and how to incorporate energy efficiency into the building. She later moved to New York with the same company and managed the renovation of the office there. At the time, she was working in visual effects, but started to volunteer with GreenHomeNYC to gain exposure to the green building industry. She was a founding member of the Forums planning committee and put together monthly panels with speakers on a variety of green building topics.
She was able to realize the dream of getting a construction degree last year, when she enrolled and completed the year-long Carpentry diploma program at the community college where she is serving a third Green Iowa AmeriCorps service term as a Sustainability Coordinator. The instructor of the Carpentry program was a big proponent of energy efficient building and the hands-on learning was a true highlight of her year.
After completing the Carpentry program, she enrolled and is currently in the second semester of the Business Administration program. Next year she plans to add the two courses (AutoCAD and Construction Estimating) needed to achieve the Construction Management degree as well. She has learned that it is important to be able to prove the economic benefit of energy efficiency to get more buy-in from all stakeholders. By supplementing her Carpentry diploma with Business Administration and Construction Management, she will be able to further her knowledge in economically viable energy efficiency and hopefully translate that into a career in the energy efficiency field.
The IAEE scholarship committee is proud to award the 2023 scholarship to Kara. She represents the IAEE mission statement “To champion the efficient use of energy, for the benefit of all Iowans, by serving our members through education and collaboration”.
2022 Scholarship Recipient
Reina Trosper
2020 Scholarship Recipient
Carissa Moyna
Carissa is a senior at Iowa State University, majoring in Civil Engineering. Her passion for engineering and construction was sparked at a young age by her father’s inspirational career in the family’s road construction business. During a recent construction internship, Carissa was inspired to improve the process to ensure proper design and reduction of the building’s environmental footprint through energy efficiency solutions. Carissa was also part of The Green Energy Challenge, a national competition involving preparation of a proposal to increase the energy efficiency of a community building, in which her team took first place. The competition also included volunteering at the team’s community building and Carissa was the volunteer coordinator for the selected senior citizens center. She planned a lunch and learn series with seniors that creatively shared energy efficiency tips with trivia and a presentation about LED rebates. She plans to continue her studies at Iowa State in the concurrent MBA program and aspires to open her own environmental design-build firm which would focus on energy efficiency.
The IAEE scholarship committee is proud to award the 2020 scholarship to Carissa. She represents the IAEE mission statement “To champion the efficient use of energy, for the benefit of all Iowans, by serving our members through education and collaboration”.
2019 Scholarship Recipient
Luke Narog
Luke Narog is a Junior at Iowa State University studying Mechanical Engineering. In his application essay he states “I believe Mechanical Engineering is a great degree for this field because it is fundamentally geared towards applying principles including thermodynamics, heating & ventilation to continually improve energy usage. Mechanical Engineering’s diversity allows one to work on improving the heat retention and cooling demands of a building or work on the floor of a manufacturing plant to improve the efficiency of machinery. Two different types of work with the same outcome of greater energy efficiency.” Luke showed how his education and his volunteer projects changed the way he views large scale energy usage and he will be able to better apply his learning to improve energy efficiency.
2018 Scholarship Recipients
Logan Peters
Logan, of Portsmouth, IA, is a Junior at Iowa State University and is majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently interning at SystemWorks LLC where he is helping to improve energy efficiency of mechanical systems in new and existing buildings. He had the opportunity to analyze data from the Indian Creek Nature Center which is one of Iowa’s first net-zero buildings. His goal is to design farm equipment that is more energy efficient. In his studies and internship, Logan has displayed a real passion for energy efficiency.
Michael Seymour
Michael, of Urbandale, IA, is a junior at Iowa State University and is majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor Sales Engineering. Over the past few years he has had the opportunity to work with HVAC professionals at The Waldinger Corporation and Control Installations of Iowa as a mechanical engineering intern. Michael is the President of the ASHRAE student chapter at Iowa State University. He is using his position in that organization to help further the IAEE mission to “promote the art and science of the efficient use of energy” by inviting guest speakers, that focus on energy efficiency, to their meetings. This is the second time Michael has received an IAEE scholarship. The committee felt that he had shown tremendous grown in just the six months since he last received this award.