Her Story
About Bhavya
Bhavya Bajpai is a sustainable energy and project management professional with 3 to 4 years of experience in energy engineering and sustainability. She currently works as an Energy Project Manager at Mount Sinai Health System, managing a portfolio of 13 buildings. Her typical day involves meetings with plant managers, mapping consumption trends, performing walkthroughs of mechanical spaces to find energy conservation measures, and handling compliance and incentive applications. Bhavya earned her master's degree at Columbia University, which provided a strong foundation through its program, outreach, and access to industry trends, conferences, and summits. Her early internships at IIT Bombay and IIT Gandhinagar helped shape her path in energy optimization. She also holds CEM and LEED certifications, which keep her industry relevant. Bhavya is passionate about energy equality and optimizing systems to reduce emissions and grid impact.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Bhavya
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received was to get out there, not just stay confined in the books and materials, but to actually step out, have real-time relatable work experience, get internships, be a hands-on person when it comes to systems, and translate what's written on the paper into reality. Reach out and shadow people in the early stage.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say electrical engineering and mechanical engineering is still a very male-dominated industry. I would tell them to not be intimidated, to be confident in themselves, and believe in their worth, and the fact that they deserve a place and they have the equal amount of knowledge and direction to anyone else around them. Be confident in themselves. They have earned this place so I should act like it. Like, don't be intimidated.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
In terms of challenges, this kind of job is for someone who's comfortable in confined mechanical spaces and knows their way around different components of a mechanical system and mechanical HVAC system. You need to be someone who's comfortable in being in basements, climbing on top of things. The opportunities are that the more you're able to find a new project upgrade, it reflects in a tremendous amount of savings for the client, reduces the grid impact, and reduces the emissions, resulting in a huge impact in how much energy these systems consume and making the system better for the world.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being able to remain calm and honestly communicate things is really important. Be punctual, be honest with yourself about the deadlines and the others, make sure you're communicating properly, be respectful and mindful to your colleagues. Team values are really important, working in a team, working as a team.
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