Sinara (Venice) Chalermthanakom

Venice Chalermthanakom is from Bangkok, Thailand and graduated from Shrewsbury International School Bangkok as a Sir David Lees Scholar. At Columbia, she plans to major in Earth and Environmental Engineering with a possible minor in Entrepreneurship.

Her family’s involvement in the coffee industry gave her early exposure to farms in southern Thailand, where she observed both the agricultural process and the wastewater pollution that came with it. Motivated to find sustainable solutions for her community, Venice founded From the Grounds Up, a circular waste initiative that transforms spent coffee grounds and pulp into mushroom-growing substrates. She trained staff at local cafés in Bangkok to integrate waste-repurposing into their businesses and partnered with coffee farmers in Chumphon to address pulp wastewater through physical remediation.

These experiences led her to research at Chulalongkorn University, where she worked in the Nat Pombubpa Lab on the screening and identification of pectinolytic and cellulolytic microbes in coffee pulp. Her project, which explored circular methods of waste remediation, was recognized with the “Excellent Presentation Award” at the 16th Science Research Conference at Mahasarakham University.

Beyond research, Venice has taken on leadership roles in service and outreach. As Chapter President of Habitat for Humanity Thailand, she coordinated over 60 members and raised more than $6,000 for community build projects in Bangkok. She also founded Rooted in STEM, an initiative that brought interactive science workshops on waste management and disease prevention to underprivileged schools across Thailand. In her free time, Venice enjoys cooking and experimenting with the science behind food, even creating a DIY Arduino-based viscometer to test her kitchen ideas.

At Columbia, she hopes to explore scalable sustainable innovations in agriculture and food production, with the long-term goal of building ventures that combine environmental impact with community empowerment.