Evan Roden

In 2016, at fifteen, Evan Roden co-founded the Youth Coalition For Organ Donation in East Aurora, New York. The coalition is a youth-led, registered nonprofit advocacy group, and its opt-out proposal became a bill in the New York State Assembly aimed at New York's donor registration rate, then the lowest in the nation.^1,2

At Tulane University, Evan earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Biomedical Engineering³ and worked in three research labs. On a co-op at the VA, he designed 3D-printed tools that let veterans with double-arm loss place and remove their own dentures. He also studied membrane-active peptides for drug delivery in the Wimley Lab at Tulane School of Medicine and investigated the cardiovascular effects of indoor air pollution in New Orleans. That work built on an earlier Tulane study linking residential black carbon exposure to higher systolic blood pressure.⁴

At the same time, Evan worked as a cinematographer with Claiborne Avenue Productions under Albert J. Moten, Jr., where he operated BlackMagic 6K and Sony a7s II cameras on productions across New Orleans. He produced digital marketing content for Tulane's Freeman School of Business, gave a TEDx talk on youth political participation,⁵ and walked the runway for Vogue Italy in BizarrAudi's SchoolTime collection.

Since graduating, Evan has worked in three industries. At Odoo, he was an account executive implementing ERP systems for manufacturing, food and beverage, and retail clients, and in one month he hit 160% of his non-recurring revenue goal. At Convergint in San Francisco, he worked on fire and life safety systems as an account executive. He now works at ENFRA, where he manages the central energy plants at two Rochester Regional Health hospitals under a $143.8 million, 30-year Energy-as-a-Service partnership.⁶ Those plants produce the steam, chilled water, and electricity the hospitals run on.