Alyssa Kranzmann '12

When asked to pick her favorite aspect of her Cornell experience, recent Chemical Engineering graduate Alyssa Kranzmann can’t narrow it down to just one thing. Instead of choosing either her demanding technical curriculum, the friendships she formed in her sorority, or her involvement in one of Cornell’s a cappella groups, she describes the unique balance she found among all three. It is the combination she says that ultimately prepared her for life beyond Cornell.

Coming from a small high school in Southern California, Kranzmann knew she would need to find her niches at Cornell to make campus feel smaller and less daunting. She attended an a cappella meet-and-greet during freshmen orientation week and was most impressed by the powerful sound of Nothing But Treble (NBT), Cornell’s original all-female a cappella group. Ten days and three rounds of auditions later, she was welcomed as one of NBT’s newest members. Her experience as a pianist and member of her high school’s chorus helped her quickly become an important contributor in the group, and she was elected musical director at the end of her sophomore year. “As a leader, I learned a lot about how to accomplish things more efficiently and how to motivate people, and I think that will be really valuable to me in my career,” Alyssa says. Her proudest accomplishment with the group was raising the funds to finish recording a studio album that had been halfway complete for almost five years.

After completing her first year in Chemical Engineering, Kranzmann spent two months working at Tesoro’s Los Angeles refinery in its Project Engineering department. She helped develop energy efficiency reports for process units to identify opportunities for cost savings. The following summer, she returned to the refinery and worked in Process Controls analyzing flow-meter data to help optimize fluid flow throughout the refinery. Her time at Tesoro provided her with valuable hands-on experience and allowed her to apply fundamental technical skills.

Back at Cornell, Kranzmann began acquiring a strong interest in the business development aspects of an engineering career. She knew that the summer before her senior year would be her final opportunity to gain work experience in a different industry before graduation. She worked as an R&D intern for Unilever in Connecticut on a project to correlate the quantitative physical properties of skincare formulations with consumers’ sensory perceptions of the product. In addition, she learned a great deal about what makes a large-scale global business so successful. One important component is sustainability: Unilever recently adopted a 10-year plan to double its business while reducing its overall environmental impact. “I was impressed that even the interns were encouraged to think globally and sustainably,” she says. Kranzmann will begin full-time with Unilever at the end of July 2012.

Since being exposed to the sustainability efforts at Unilever, Kranzmann has attended a dozen energy lectures as part of a one-credit seminar, and she attributes much of her current perspective on energy to what she learned from the speakers in the class. Perhaps most important, she believes that the environmental and economic performances of a business are not mutually exclusive. “It is definitely possible for companies to work towards sustainability without compromising their financial successes,” she says. “The world’s energy issues will only be solved collaboratively, so I think it’s becoming important for large corporations, lawmakers, and individual consumers to all accept some kind of responsibility in working towards the solution.”