Edward Hui Sutton

Edward Sutton is from Dallas, Texas, and graduated from Lovejoy High School. He is interested in sustainable engineering and agricultural technology development and plans to major in Earth and Environmental Engineering with a Minor in Computer Science.

Edward first found his interest in engineering and technology as a freshman in high school in 2020. After taking his first computer science course and regularly participating in the competitive programming team at his school, he realized he wanted to explore engineering more deeply. This led him to his first research experience in 2021, where he spent an intensive summer at the University of Texas at Dallas developing a proof of concept prototype for a cycloidal magnetic gear system under Professor Matthew Gardner that combined axial and radial topologies to primarily canceled out the eccentric component of magnetic forces while preserving the high gear ratios and torque densities that characterize magnetic gear systems, relieving the crucial issue of unbalanced magnetic forces in magnetic gear systems and allowing gear lifespan to be directly increased through decreasing stress on the gear bearings.

After this, Edward began exploring a vastly different yet interconnected field, agriculture. His passions for agriculture stem from his community-oriented experiences in high school, where he ran the Organic Permaculture Club as co-president, utilizing regenerative agriculture strategies to grow many varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and cover crops completely organically. He used this club to serve and educate his community, hosting weekly agriculture info sessions, manning a stand at his local farmers market to bring his knowledge to the community, and visiting other schools in his district to teach about the harms of conventional commercial farming practices and the importance of sustainability in the agriculture sector, and hosting community tours of the club’s property.

These varying experiences were the foundation for his drive in agricultural technology, leading him to intern at an agricultural technology company based in China in the summer of 2023, DeepBerry. Edward spent two weeks on their smart blueberry farm in rural Yunnan, China, and an additional week working in their high-tech research and development facility in Changsha, China, where he learned about their work in using Artificial Intelligence, precision sensing, and cloud computing to help increase and streamline crop production in addition to the fertigation, irrigation, and electrical systems that controlled and automated the farm. Throughout these weeks, he learned the ins and outs of the construction processes and technology that ran the farm, helping him gain insight into large-scale farming management.

As a Columbia student and Environmental Engineer, Edward is eager to experience the diverse community formed at Columbia and the wide range of perspectives from this. He hopes to dive deeper into his passions in the interdisciplinary field of agricultural technology that fuses farming and engineering. He aspires to make organic produce cheaper to grow, bridging the inaccessibility gap to clean produce for many due to financial constraints and making clean produce the standard for all. Edward envisions exploring sustainable engineering through research and applying his learning to developing sustainable agriculture.