Cristian Varela

Cristian Varela is a 5th year undergraduate student at the University of Rhode Island (URI), pursuing degrees in Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE) and Chinese in the International Engineering Program. At URI he is a recipient of the Thomas M. Ryan full academic scholarship, holds minors in International Development and Sustainability, and has completed a Peace Corps Prep Certificate centered on community economic development. Originally from Staten Island, New York, Cristian has spent the past year studying Mandarin and conducting research abroad at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan as a visiting researcher at the Healthcare Systems Center (HSC) under Dr. Shen Jeng. His work spans different regions and domains: from NSF-funded flood infrastructure modeling at UC Berkeley, to geothermal lithium extraction research in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to his current role as a Research Associate at the Healthcare Systems Consortium in Taichung, Taiwan, where he is engineering physics-based drone logistics simulations across a six-hospital network. As a 2025 UNITAR Global Diplomacy Fellow, Cristian presented at the UN General Assembly 80 Science Summit and has a forthcoming publication through UNITAR alongside a published paper through the NSF NHERI REU program. Cristian aspires to apply systems engineering thinking to bridge Technology and Humanitarian Diplomacy.