Not everyone sees much potential in shrimp shell waste. But Shivani Chawla (E ’25) knows that with a little cellulose powder, sodium alginate and a 3D printer, it can be transformed into a floor–to–ceiling biomaterial modern art installation that also changes color to warn of high levels of ultraviolet light. It’s this kind of innovative thinking, mixing practical engineering knowledge with a passion for nature, that drives Shivani forward.
“Natural landscapes were always my thing,” she says, describing her hiking–filled childhood in Colorado and New Jersey. A mind for math and science spurred her towards engineering, and she recalls being immediately drawn to Shu Yang’s materials science lab and the concentration in biomaterials and biomimetics. “So I applied for that, got into Penn, and my life changed.”
She lights up at the chance to define biomimetics: “Using nature–inspired motifs, designs, and materials for the human environment.” Take concrete for example, she explains. It uses a lot of water, generates a lot of carbon dioxide, and is generally pretty environmentally unfriendly. There must be a better answer somewhere, right? One solution resides in the use of shrimp shells. A compound found in their shells can be used to strengthen the material, all while reducing seafood waste. “What nature has selected for is so simple and beautiful … for me, it’s intuitive. Nature already did this for us, so we can just engineer that,” Shivani says.
Shivani’s introduction to Penn’s engineering program didn’t always spark this much passion, though. Spending her first two years consumed mostly by math and chemistry, she recalls a moment in the office of her major advisor, Pete Davies. “I had just bombed a math test, crying … I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is actually really difficult.’ [It was] way harder than I thought it was going to be.”
She remembers hearing her friends gush about their political science and finance courses, all while feeling uninspired and overworked in her materials science program. “I didn’t have the best time with what I learned in class,” Shivani says. “I think materials science at Penn is very battery–oriented, very materials–oriented, rather than the natural thing I was looking for.”
Some clarity came to her in the form of a summer Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program position with professor Laia Mogas–Soldevila, director of DumoLab Research at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Dumolab works on interdisciplinary, environmental, and health–focused designs, from biodegradable packaging to regenerative buildings. “It kind of broke me out of that hardcore engineering stuff that I didn’t like [and] into the whole space of design and architecture,” Shivani says.
This is where the shrimp flakes come in: As the lab’s materials engineer, Shivani worked with shrimp and cellulose waste, which has the potential to become anything from sustainable packaging to textile. “Anything that comes into this lab, you need to be able to eat it,” she laughs, describing the goop she would have brewing in industrial mixers. Keeping things clean and organic like this forgoes the need for typical lab precautions, Shivani explains, and ensures that everything is sustainable. With the help of some 3D printers, she would make the biomaterial sludge into “organically informed lattice thing[s],” which have been on display at the Institute of Contemporary Art and took her all the way to Milan Design Week.
“That was interesting, because I knew all the science behind it, but these people are architects,” she says. Most of the passersby could appreciate the visuals of the large, latticed spirals of Sensbiom 2, the lab’s installation at Milan Design Week, but it was Shivani’s role to explain the chemically caused color change the material would undergo when exposed to ultraviolet light, and how this can help notify viewers of environmental hazards. “It makes it feel like the work that we do in the lab is actually speaking to people. … I was like, ‘Wow, someone’s taking a picture of my work because it’s beautiful to them.’ It translates science into beauty in my mind.”
Shivani is not just limited to engineering and design, though—a class on environmental policy with professor Sarah Light inspired her to add an interschool minor in sustainability and environmental management. “I’m at Penn. I want to use every single school, why would I not?”
It was this interest in policy that landed her in San Francisco last summer to work for the Environmental Protection Agency. “The office was amazing. Everyone’s mission–oriented,” Shivani says, reminiscing on the cozy, friendly workplace culture where people would bring in fresh–baked bread to share with coworkers. It was “a little ahead of the game,” she says of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest branch, but a “very humble, very hard working place to work.”
While her peers were getting recruited for finance, or planning out master’s degrees and Ph.D.s, Shivani was drawn to the Pathways Program, which connects undergrads and recently graduated students with federal employment. After a certain amount of hours worked, she would be able to be hired full time. “That’s amazing, even if I don’t want to be in San Francisco, even if I don’t want to work in environmental policy. I was like, ‘This will be my backup for when I graduate,’” she says.
She spent that summer in San Francisco working on Title V of the Clean Air Act: standardizing air pollution parameters, emailing district officials about emissions permits, and dealing with the back and forth. “Everything kind of takes a long time in the pipeline of bureaucracy, so I was on seven or eight different things at once, and then you kind of just have to keep track of what’s where.” Maybe not as material as her work with cellulose and 3D printing, but Shivani had a tangible, traceable effect all the same.
In the fall, she returned to Penn to complete her final year of undergrad, but continued working part time remotely for the EPA, three time zones away. Then came the election, the founding of the Department of Government Efficiency, and the chaos and uncertainty of the first months of the Trump presidency. “A lot was going on, but I was still plugged into it, because I needed to hit that certain number of hours,” Shivani says. “And then, literally as soon as I did, I got laid off.”
On Friday, Feb. 14, when most students were celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles’ recent Super Bowl win, Valentine’s Day, or some combination of the two, Shivani got a text from her manager at the EPA; an email had been sent out to probationary employees, warning her to check her work laptop as soon as possible. “I tried logging in, but I couldn’t, and I later found out they got rid of our access within 30 minutes,” she says. “I didn’t even see the email that laid me off.”
After months of planning for the public sector, Shivani realized she needed to seek employment elsewhere, at least for the time being. She’s started applying for jobs in the local government, trying to maintain that “mission–oriented” feel she found in San Francisco.
At the moment, Shivani sees herself working in New York, specifically in affordable housing. “I’m just kind of networking around,” she says, explaining how she wants to see how her interests in engineering, policy, and service can be used in the built environment.
Wherever she ends up, Shivani makes it clear she’s going to use her degree in the most positive, gratifying way she can, and she encourages other Penn students to do the same. “Your paycheck is gonna take a hit, but that’s the only thing,” she says. “You’re gonna feel way more fulfilled every single day if you’re applying your knowledge to anything that is helping other people. … Your work should feel good and clean and beautiful.”
When asked about what she likes most about Penn’s campus, given her interest in the built environment, Shivani pauses for a moment. Then, she says she loves the way college housing migrates throughout the years: In perhaps another instance of biomimicry, we migrate together from the freshman dorms on the east side of campus to the high rises, then finally west to the off–campus housing of upperclassmen. “It keeps us together,” she says, reflecting that she’ll miss “small interactions and just passing people on the street,” the most. Nevertheless she remains hopeful about the futures of her and her classmates. “We’ll all be okay. We are positioned to be the best in the entire country, so if anyone’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna be okay.”
