MES in the Community

At the conclusion of his academic journey at Penn, earning a Master of Environmental Studies (MES) in May 2025, Desra Arriyadi has many accomplishments to look back on. He came to the MES program having earned a full scholarship from his home country, Indonesia. While studying at Penn, he completed an internship with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, contributing research to the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference. And in his final semester, Desra was named the 2025 professional master’s programs Dean’s Scholar for his academic achievements. Coming full circle, he plans to return home to support local communities.

Desra’s curiosity about the environment started at a young age, when he heard a new phrase on TV. “My interest in the environment and deforestation all came from one term called climate change,” he shares. “The news said that climate change is one of the biggest challenges in humanity and can cause a lot of damage, so I wanted to get involved in this sector.”

As an undergraduate, Desra studied applied meteorology, learning about greenhouse gas emissions and rising global temperatures. He also learned that one of the biggest environmental challenges facing Indonesia—and many other developing countries—is deforestation and wetland degradation. Indonesia, he explains, is the world’s leader in palm oil production—an industry that drives the conversion of forests and wetlands to agricultural use, eliminating the valuable carbon sink and other benefits that those natural lands provide.

Once he completed his bachelor’s, Desra chose to work in peatland conservation with an environmental services company. Projects included collaborating with local communities impacted by deforestation, replanting native trees, and building sustainable agroforestry practices. “I worked there for five years,” he says, “and then I felt I had to enhance my capabilities in the sector. I needed a higher degree.”

Earning a scholarship from the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, Desra had the chance to study anywhere in the world for graduate school. While he hadn’t considered a program abroad before, he was encouraged by a favorite saying: If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough. “This quote really means a lot to me,” he shares. “It constantly pushes me to aim higher and step out of my comfort zone.”

Determined to dream big, Desra carefully searched for the right program for him. “I checked, one by one, the top 50 universities, and then I checked, one by one, their programs and what courses that they offered,” he says. “Penn was the perfect match for my interests,” he discovered. The Penn MES had a concentration in resource management, the type of work Desra hoped to continue doing in the future, and plenty of field classes, which also matched his professional experience. He applied and was accepted for fall 2023.

In his first semester, Desra took one of the classes that initially piqued his interest in the program, Wetlands. The course inspired him to focus on peatlands for his capstone project. The course instructor, Dr. Sally Willig, would serve as his capstone advisor. As part of his research, he spent a week at the US Forest Service peatland research and development center in Minnesota, the Marcell Experimental Forest. “I learned a lot of new things and tried to compare it to what I learned in class and with my own experience to connect all the dots,” he says.

As he advanced in the program, Desra continued to find his MES classes offered valuable insights on conservation strategies in the US that he could compare to his experiences in Indonesia. Taking advantage of the interdisciplinary nature of the Penn program, he also looked beyond strictly environmental classes. To sharpen his technology skills, he took a GIS class (later serving as a teaching assistant) and Geospatial Analysis in Python, a class from the Weitzman School of Design. “I really love the intersection between technology and environmental problems,” he says, noting that he applied what he learned in the courses to his capstone research. To round out his professional skills, he also took an organizational project management course from Penn’s Organizational Dynamics Programs. “I had managed projects before, but I didn’t have the formal education about project management,” he says, “so I think I needed this course—I think it’s really important to have management skills for my future career.”

Desra found that engaging with his classmates was also a significant part of his Penn education. “As an environmental practitioner, I think it’s really important to have a global perspective, and I learned a lot from discussions with my friends here,” he says. “In the MES program, students come from everywhere, and they bring their own unique experiences—they come from different countries and different backgrounds in sustainability, or water, or energy, so they have some new viewpoint I can learn from them,” he says.

In summer 2024, Desra traveled to Taizhou, China, to present his current research at the International Peatland Congress—an opportunity made possible through the support of the President Gutmann Leadership Award through Penn’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA). The event marked the 17th gathering in the 5-year history of the International Peatland Society, and hosted about 350 participants from 22 countries. His presentation, entitled “Developing Prediction Models for Net Ecosystem Exchange in Peatlands,” earned him the Best Student Oral Presentation Award.

That same summer, Desra began an internship with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN entity focused on the global response to the climate crisis. “I wanted to apply to UNFCCC because it is the most pivotal UN body in terms of climate change,” he says. Working with the transparency division on AFOLU (agriculture, forestry, and other land use), Desra spent six months analyzing reports on deforestation from 60 developing countries. His analysis was shared at the 29th annual UN Climate Change Conference, known as the Conference of Parties or COP, which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. Though he couldn’t be there in person, Desra was able to attend virtually. “I had access to how countries negotiate about climate change,” he says, noting he could observe the different strategies and priorities of different countries. “It was one of my best experiences.”

Desra folded his UNFCCC work into his capstone project, assessing how developing countries calculate their carbon stock for reporting tied to much-needed emissions-reduction funding provided by the UN and the World Bank. Desra presented his capstone work alongside other students at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences’ annual Graduate Student Research Conference in March 2025.

As a crowning achievement to his time at Penn, and in recognition of his exceptional academic performance and promise, Desra was named the 2025 professional master’s programs Dean’s Scholar. “I’m honored and really grateful to get the award, and it motivates me to do more,” he says. “That’s why after graduation I decided to go back to my country to contribute my expertise and apply what I learned at Penn. I feel like this is my responsibility.”

Desra initially plans on consulting to support environmental efforts with local Indonesian communities. Long-term, he remains motivated by his favorite quote to achieve his next big dream—developing and running his own conservation project that makes a big impact in the community.