Hailing from San Marcos, Texas, Isabella de la Iglesia (Martel College ’23) recalls growing up around natural scenery and credits her upbringing for instilling her with an appreciation for the environment. In spring 2020, de la Iglesia took a course on climate science taught by Sylvia Dee, assistant professor in Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, and was intrigued to explore how it informed potential solutions to mitigate the climate change crisis.
As an architecture major, de la Iglesia wanted her final paper for the course to involve architecture, and was finally inspired by a classmate’s comment during a discussion on albedo: the proportion of light radiation that is reflected back into outer space by a planet’s surface.“The basic idea of albedo is that lighter surfaces reflect more light back to space than darker surfaces do,” she says. “Somebody raised their hand and they were like, ‘Well, what if we just made things on the earth lighter, would that help the issue?’ It sounds like a stupid solution but based on the concept, theoretically that should help. So, when I heard that, I thought that sounds like a really interesting idea to investigate.”
In her award-winning research paper, “Urban Albedo and the Impact of White Rooftops in Greater Houston, Texas and the State of Texas,” de la Iglesia synthesized data from various local case studies and came to the conclusion that painting rooftops white in Greater Houston would indeed increase urban albedo — meaning less heat would be stored in the city’s atmosphere. Dee submitted de la Iglesia’s paper for consideration for the Greene Prize, where it immediately stood out to Richard Johnson, co-director of the Environmental Studies minor; director of the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management; Professor in the Practice of Environmental Studies; Adjunct Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering; and longtime member of the Greene Prize selection committee.
"She developed a novel methodology and then applied it in a sophisticated way that to me reflected a degree of understanding and capability that far exceeded the level of course she was in, and I think stood out as even graduate level work,” says Johnson. “Within this otherwise technical paper, there was a lot of clear intellectual creativity and problem solving that took place in her mind and she was able to express herself effectively. I thought it was an all-around great representation of a student who truly understood a concept, developed a way to solve a problem, did so and then communicated it superbly.”
De la Iglesia says she intends to continue exploring environmental topics and their intersections with architecture throughout her remaining time at Rice. "Environmentalism — combating climate change specifically — is very important to me and will certainly be important in my future work as an architect.”