Good Energy

SEBS alumna Devinn Lambert named to Forbes 30-Under-30 list

Following an outstanding undergraduate career at Rutgers, Devinn Lambert (SEBS’13, biotechnology major with a minor in biochemistry) was named to the coveted Forbes 30-Under-30 list earlier this year for her work on finding solutions to the country’s renewable energy challenge.

Lambert is currently, by far, the youngest of 20 technology managers at the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office, which oversees research grants on a team that invests about $35 million a year. In addition, the office helps to identify universities and industries that can collaborate on projects that will lead to the creation of more green energy biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming.

The 2013 Rutgers graduate has always wanted to be a scientist, as she shared in a recent university profile, and remembers wanting to be a marine biologist as a sixth grader. By eighth grade, she became part of the first class of the Biotechnology High School in Freehold before embarking on four years of undergraduate education at SEBS.

Lambert immersed herself in research through the university’s Aresty Research Center, and later initiated a 10-week research program with Singapore’s Agency for Science Technology and Research after learning of the country’s extensive investment in scientific development. She earned several prestigious awards during her four years at SEBS, including a 2012 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which is awarded for excellence in mathematics, science, and engineering. In addition, Lambert was named one of only 39 undergraduate students across the U.S. (and one of two students at Rutgers) in 2013 to earn a coveted scholarship funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Even as an undergraduate, Lambert already had her sights set on a doctorate in microbiology with a focus on synthetic biology and biofuels. After graduating from SEBS with highest honors, she headed off to earn a master’s degree from Cambridge University as a Gates scholar. Her career was going according to plan when she was accepted into a doctoral program as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the School of Biological Sciences at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, a renowned research and education institute.

Eschewing a career as a research scientist, Lambert instead earned a master’s of science degree from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and won a Presidential Management fellowship to be trained as a biofuels technology manager at the Department of Energy (DOE). It’s in this capacity that Lambert was named to the coveted list of energy trailblazers.