Larissa Wallisch '22 (Gzowski College) knew she wanted to help build a healthier future. She first imagined doing that through a career in healthcare, but ultimately found purpose in protecting the planet.  

A graduate of Trent’s Environmental Geoscience program, Larissa is now completing her Environmental & Life Sciences master’s degree researching enhanced rock weathering (ERW) methodologies in Haliburton Forest, alongside Dr. Ian Power, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Geoscience and Dr. Shaun Watmouth from the Trent School of the Environment.  

“I am focused on carbon sequestration using enhanced rock weathering, which essentially means using rocks to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Larissa explains. “There are a few of us doing this work, but the industry is becoming much more prevalent and is growing for sure.” 

After initially attending college for paramedicine, Larissa came to this work through her undergraduate studies at Trent, where she embraced every opportunity the program had to offer. She worked as a summer research assistant in Prof. Power's lab, competed in the Three-Minute Paper competition, completed an honours thesis exploring climate solutions using ERW, and presented that research at an international conference in South Africa. 

"As a master’s student now, it’s cool to think back and appreciate how far I’ve come. I realized pretty quickly that environmental geoscience was something I was interested in and a field I could see myself working in to make the kind of positive impact I always hoped to. At Trent, I really found my environmental people." 

Learn more about Environmental Geoscience at Trent University.