CATALYST MAGAZINE: Fall 2025
Semester at a Glance
Kim Scott
One of our first speakers was Kim Scott, who led a workshop centered around giving “Radical Candor. We practiced our feedback skills by speaking with the four main categories of feedback: Ruinous Empathy, Manipulative Insincerity, Obnoxious Aggression, and, most importantly, Radical Candor. We emerged from this experience with a newfound appreciation for good feedback.
Tekedra Mawakana
We met with the Co-CEO of Waymo, Tekedra Mawakana, where we discussed topics ranging from why people choose to ride Waymo to taking responsibility for safety issues and taking pride in how safe Waymo is. We walked out of the conversation with a great understanding of how to be an open and compassionate leader.
Novato Landfill
We, the Catalyst class, visited the Redwood Landfill in Novato to see where our waste ultimately ends up after we throw it away. Seeing the massive hills of buried garbage was a bit surreal and it made us more mindful of how we handle our waste. It’s easy to forget that everything we throw away doesn’t disappear—it ends up buried in the ground.
Nvidia
We visited NVIDIA’s headquarters and data center to learn about the company’s history and explore Earth-2, a platform that simulates the entire world’s climate. Toward the end of the day, we watched a human-like robot built by NVIDIA engineers run around and perform stunts, and were able to ask questions to the people behind the invention.
Switch Bioworks
We took a trip to the headquarters of an innovative fertilizer company in San Carlos, where we learned how a real startup operated. Hearing the pitch performed by their CEO, Tim Schnabel, opened our eyes to how companies work to get investors.
Catalyst Retreat
To start the semester, we took a three-day retreat to Monterey. We hiked and kayaked around the pacific coast and cooked s'mores under the stars. It was a super dynamic way for us to bond as a cohort and get a snapshot of the learning we would be doing later in the semester.
Microgrid Proposal
In a joint history and engineering collaborative assessment, we examined how power is generated, transmitted, and distributed, and explored strategies to strengthen the system. Community microgrids—designed to enhance resilience—provided a powerful example of how technology and social systems work together to solve shared challenges.
Nuclear Fusion
An exciting day for Catalyst was our nuclear fusion day, meeting with some of the leading experts in the field, Annie Kritcher and Mike Dunn. We learned about how fusion works, and the possibilities that would be unleashed when it is sustained. Midway through the day, we played a board game about generating enough green energy for New York by 2035, and saw how complex the electrical grid system really is.
Windborne
On our trip to Windborne, we learned how companies use atmospheric data from weather balloons to create their own forecasts. They showed us how AI models are used to make predictions, and we even got to watch a weather balloon launch up close.
Biomimicry
In a collaborative biology and engineering project, we applied biomimicry in designing products that address aspects of climate change. We created sustainability-focused designs that challenged us to integrate scientific understanding with design thinking strategies, which redefined our understanding of approaching complex problems.
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