Rachel got hooked on bicycle-touring and the beautiful Rocky Mountain West in 2015 when she co-founded Cycle for Science, bicycled across the U.S., and stopped in K-12 classrooms along the way to teach lessons about solar energy and climate change. She received a B.S. in Physics from UCLA, and a Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley designing new materials to convert solar energy into sustainable electricity. Rachel recently started as a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Washington’s Clean Energy Institute where she’s using life cycle assessment techniques to research environmental impacts of new solar technologies on the planet and its inhabitants. She strives to share the joys of science openly and accessibly through outreach and teaching, while also recognizing science and engineering have historically caused (and still do cause) harm and that we need to radically change this culture for a truly just and sustainable energy transition. Rachel taught half of Cycle the Rockies in 2017, and is thrilled to be back on the bike to teach the full course in 2023!