Ecologue

To foster camaraderie and community between colleagues and celebrate individual and collective employee success, the OSU Sustainability Office and Materials Management department have created a student staff spotlight series. We want to build a sense of belonging for all who are employed by our organizations and support the diversity of our backgrounds.

Milan Donhowe (he/him) is a Student Software Developer at the Sustainability Office. He is a fourth-year majoring in Applied Computer Science with an option in Data Science. His primary responsibilities are to maintain on-campus Sustainability Kiosks and the Sustainability Office’s open-source software projects (such as the Energy Dashboard, Sustainability Map, and Carbon Calculator), as well as implement software solutions to various problems (such as with the Solar Trailer Camera). He also helps with miscellaneous tasks.

One of Milan’s favorite projects has been the Sustainability Map because the development was relatively seamless and he had the opportunity to learn about resources, infrastructure features, and programs at OSU. Meanwhile, maintenance work on the Energy Dashboard has been more technically challenging, but it has been rewarding to see improvements to the dashboard’s capabilities – “besides the times my feature additions have accidentally crashed the dashboard”, Milan adds. Other memorable tasks have included adding scripts to automatically fetch and forward solar panel data from our solar arrays to the dashboard, extending the dashboard’s APIs to handle data collection for the LINC’s large metering setup (LINC has around 30 meters involved for monitoring its energy usage!), and trying to speed up the dashboard by tinkering with the dashboard’s caching mechanisms.

Milan is from Southeast Portland. He enjoys the cloudy skies and slightly cold temperatures of Oregon because “he likes wearing coats.” His favorite part about home is how connected it feels: “it’s not too far from downtown, it’s really easy to walk around, and there are generous bike lines and some great restaurants in that part of town”, says Milan.

Outside of his internship at the Sustainability Office, Milan is involved with the OSU Security Club – last year, he helped out as a volunteer coach in their CTF League, where students learn about various software vulnerabilities in a hands-on setting. He recently started competing with the team in a few online CTF tournaments. Milan is also involved with the OSU Forensics team (Speech & Debate). When not participating in extracurriculars, he enjoys consuming excessive amounts of coffee – “although recently I’ve been getting into tea instead – it’s surprisingly good with milk”, says Milan.

While working at the Sustainability Office, Milan notes that he has grown professionally through exposure to important software services and tools – particularly the cloud services that are used to run most applications at the office. He has learned that maintaining a timeline or another system for organizing tasks is useful when determining what you need to accomplish, and gives you a sense of accomplishment when you look back at all the things you’ve done. He also has improved his professional communication skills – especially emailing.

“I enjoy the interdisciplinary nature of the team – I feel like everyone brings a unique and valuable skillset, which has allowed us to accomplish a wide range of tasks. Everyone is a pleasure to work with and genuinely enthusiastic about sustainability, which I have really appreciated”, Milan adds.

To incoming employees, Milan offers this advice – “remember to clock in when you work, and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you get stuck on a task.”

We appreciate all your hard work, Milan!