 Hello everyone, my name is Samir Minilla. I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering and I'm one of the Redcom pre-doctoral fellows in this year's cohort. I first want to congratulate all the fellow recipients. This is a prestigious award that links together doctoral students from across the breadth of Redcom disciplines who are conducting creative, ambitious and impactful research. It is an honor to be awarded this fellowship and become a part of this cohort. It also provides us an opportunity to dedicatedly work on our research without worrying about how our tuition or stipends will be covered in the final stages of our PhD work. This is often a source of great concern for many graduate students. I'm certain that I speak on behalf of all the fellows in saying that we are enormously grateful for this fellowship. I personally want to thank my advisors, the review and selection committee and everyone at the Redcom graduate school who makes this possible. You're now in the second year of a global pandemic which has impacted our lives in some form. It is disappointing that we cannot celebrate together but I hope we can find the inspiration and encouragement from one another and from our mentors at Redcom. I hope you can soon meet the important. Until then, take care of yourselves, stay safe and go blue.