Lauren Kaapcke, a first-year master’s student, graduated with University Honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in Global Economics in 2009. After graduating, she moved to Germany for a job in digital marketing, where she became enamored of using Big Data for optimization and complex problem solving. Responsible for large advertising campaigns, Lauren analyzed customer data to discover insights and increase sales. Outside of work, Lauren explored some of her childhood interests: growing food and traveling. She volunteered on organic farms in Switzerland and Japan to learn about permaculture and sustainable agriculture. She traveled to over 30 countries in Europe and Asia. She saw the many inequities among countries and realized the need to mitigate our impact on the environment, especially in the way we produce food. These experiences motivated her to change careers and apply her hard skills in the environmental field. At the Bren School, Lauren plans to specialize in Corporate Environmental Management or Pollution Prevention and Remediation with a focus on the food system. She is interested in reducing waste as well as creating new revenue streams from waste. She envisions a career working with companies to implement waste solutions in the agriculture or industrial food industries