The island of Curaçao I grew up on has enough solar insolation and wind to run completely on sustainable energy, but still runs mainly on oil. Meanwhile, a badly maintained oil refinery that severely pollutes the island and poses a threat to public health was kept running for decades because it was considered too large of a contribution to the economy to decommission. Being witness to such examples helped convince me I should contribute to building a more sustainable world. With a strong interest in physics, I decided to do this by focusing on the development of sustainable energy technology. After getting my master in Applied Physics at the TU Delft in 2014, I continued with a PhD on the characterization of thin film solar cells at the national research council (CNR) and University of Parma in Italy. In 2018 I started working at the TNO part of Solliance. In my current role as a reliability scientist, I focus on the identification of failure modes in flexible thin film modules with an innovative design, applied in unconventional ways. I’m proud to be working in a team that is making it possible to harvest solar energy from virtually any surface affordably and aesthetically.