How does a rock climber from Chile wind up working in America’s intellectual capital, Cambridge, Massachusetts? For Matias Opazo, a pivotal meeting last year with GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik sparked the beginning of a new career chapter.

“The meaning of life is the next generation,” wrote author Grace Paley. For GE Vernova, a company dedicated to building the energy technologies of the future, that next generation of inventors is inseparable from today’s mission. Cultivating tomorrow’s energy leaders is as critical as the work of electrifying to help communities thrive and decarbonize the world. 

Like many science-obsessed kids in the 1990s, William Tan wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Then came a reality check. “I realized I wasn’t a citizen of a country that sent people to space,” says Malaysian-born-and-raised Tan, who is now senior robotics and autonomous systems engineer at GE Vernova’s Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, New York.

Before being accepted to the Indian Institute of Science, Rajib Datta contemplated a career as a fine artist. “I was good at math and physics, so I knew engineering or science was probably in my future,” he says. But he felt equally adept in the field that he’d pursued since childhood. A natural draftsman and painter, Datta still executes figurative works and sketches today, and now senses a resonance between visual art and his pioneering work with GE Vernova in the field of power electronics.