photo of leon santen with green trees in the background. white person in their mid 20s warmly smiling.

Welcome!
Writing an introduction is tricky, considering that I used to identify with the words holistic engineer & designer. This desire has influenced my journey, digging deep into the interconnectedness of disciplines needed when pursuing climate justice work, especially needed when working in a niche technical field. I hope to shift the narrative around engineering & design.

In an abstract yet concrete sense, I am an interwoven web of relations, characterized by co-creating connection in a largely fragmented world. Sometimes, this looks like environmental science research or renewable energy engineering to reduce extractive patterns. Other times, this means zooming out to understand complex systemic patterns and centering and engaging with communities most effected by climate change to redefine power relations for ecological justice.

My work is driven by a commitment to integrating joy, indigenous & ecological wisdom, engineering, social science, and activism to re-create innovative, regenerative systems.

Together, let’s work towards healing our planet.
leon (they/any)

📍 on Ohlone Land (Oakland, California)
🌱 grown up in Frankfurt, Germany

Let me introduce:
My engineering self

creating
life-affirmative
solutions

Odalys Benitez and leon santen smiling in front of several solar panels that adjust their angle with the sun's movement.

I am a reluctant engineer. While trained in robotics, human-centered design, and renewable energy at Olin College of Engineering, I often wrestle with the reality that most engineering systems are extractive by design—built on global supply chains and practices that harm people and ecosystems rather than nurture them. This is why I dedicate my engineering career to walking a different path: one where technology empowers communities, local supply chains are developed, and solutions are designed to be regenerative, not exploitative.

Grounded in a Master of Science in Engineering, Sustainability, and Health, I approach my work with a commitment to care, coopeartion, and consent. Inspired by the principles of a just transition, I strive to create social-technological ecosystems that support thriving, resilient futures for all living beings.

Warmly,
leon (they/he)

In a nutshell:
Sustainable Engineering

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A brief overview of my renewable energy work

    energy modelling • hydro energy • sun-tracking • energy sovereignty • wind energy
    🌀 electrification & energy modelling

    I design heating & cooling systems and net-zero carbon buildings at Alter Engineers. I care about this work because I already know how to build dwellings, so this work rounds up my skill set to fully design and engineer sustainable houses (hopefully in some eco-villages in the future).

    🌀 hydro energy

    At Natel Energy, I built fish-safe water turbines to reduce the deadly impact of hydropower on ecosystems as a mechanical engineer and environmental researcher. I conducted and published a peer-reviewed study to test the turbine's impact on passing eels.

    🌀 energy sovereignty

    As part of my Master's in Engineering, Sustainability, and Health, I explored the potential of a 50 kW turbine for energy sovereignty and ethical supply chain design with students from Olin College and CalPoly.

    🌀 sun-tracking for solar panels

    I built and upgraded a solar system for an off-the-grid community in North Carolina. I was particularly proud to engineer a sun-tracker (pan-tilt mechanism) for five solar panels with Odalys Benitez.

    🌀 wind turbine siting & design

    As part of the same community project, I conducted a wind turbine siting study and prototyped a vertical-axis wind turbine with Jasmine Kamdar.
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My current work building life-affirmative engineering systems

    system-aware engineering • Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace • Just Energy Hub
    🌀 secretary & communications for Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace

    I organize retreats, conferences, and try to connect the Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace network as their secretary. Let me know if you want to be part of it! You can join our discord chat space, attend the yearly conference, or ask our network for advice.

    🌀 ethical engineering systems for the Just Energy Hub

    I am a member of the Advisory Board for the wind energy project "Just Energy Hub" at Olin College of Engineering and am currently developing frameworks for building ethical supply chains and and a regenerative engineering economy.

    🌀 weaving systemic intelligence

    In my master's capstone project, I conducted a human-centered interface design study to enable trans-disciplinary cooperation for my community of sustainable change-makers and build socially empowering and environmentally healing engineering systems. We currently call this Radical Engineering & Design (RED). Radical means to go back to the roots of a problem.

Writings:
contextualizing engineering

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What does it mean to be a holistic engineer (inspired by complex systems thinking)?

  • June 2021
    • Bachelor's Thesis

This work is my first intellectual collection of building blocks for my engineering practice inspired by "complex systems thinking" - a scientific lens that seeks to bridge disciplinary boundaries...

This work is my first intellectual collection of building blocks for my engineering practice inspired by "complex systems thinking" - a scientific lens that seeks to bridge disciplinary boundaries, embracing and observing the wholeness (holistic) nature of living systems. I further explore new scientific methodologies such as participatory research as part of a holistic (non-reductionist)approach to responding to our challenges. I critically examine the scientific method and develop an approach to creating solutions to climate change: we may become nature's apprenctice, change our research methodology to empowering affected communities (instead of studying them & reducing them to numbers), and approach our interconnected world through the all-embracing science of complex systems thinking.

We see a misalignment between the engineering field’s constitutive-interests rooted in the reductionist sciences and the needs of the 21st century in the socio-political, environmental, and spiritual realms. Following Habermas’s critical theory, the knowledge-constitutive interest of the natural and reductionist sciences lie primarily in the manipulation of the physical world for the purpose of predictable and quantifiable outcomes by reducing the studied system to its smallest components. Such interests are unfit to understand and intervene in our world; a living world of dynamic complexity. We argue that a renewed science of holism will create the conditions for a critical engineering education that can mimic the properties of living systems to recreate a thriving existence for all living beings on this planet. In this thesis, we identify six loose web-nodes to draw a picture of a science for the whole: (1) Natural phenomena such as emergence, self-organization, or autopoiesis acquaint us with the nature of nature. (2) The study of our world brings us closer to our cosmos’s mysteries, which naturally introduces spirituality to the holistic web. (3) Dynamically complex systems theory attempts to understand the relationships between parts of the system to make assumptions about future behavior or opportunities for intervention. Practices that are commensurate with the nature of reality are crucial for an effective engagement with living systems. Such practices include (4) methods for a co-creation of the future and (5) research and learning methodologies that embrace unpredictable emergence of insights and emancipate us from hidden oppressive power structures. (6) Lastly, a holistic science includes the reductionist sciences to analyze, predict, and control non-living, simple systems. Our hope is that a holistic science will re-shape engineers’ understanding to learn and interact with our world to recreate the nature of nature in our systems: a thriving existence for all.


Read the paper
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Making sense of the spiritual dimension for environmental justice in a systemic intervention context

  • August 2023
    • Thesis for Ecological Justice

I hold this paper close to my heart because it manifests my exploration of self-transformation and complex systems thinking, holding many answers to pressing sustainability questions that most engineers only address through technical work. Somtimes, it's easier to build something than work on oneself...

I hold this paper close to my heart because it manifests my exploration of self-transformation and complex systems thinking, holding many answers to pressing sustainability questions that most engineers only address through technical work. Sometimes, it's easier to build something than work on oneself. It is also set up for you to comment. I'd love to see your thoughts. (It is also a design/communication project because I formatted the whole paper myself.)

First, I share building blocks of the historical context that have led to a world-wide state of destruction and oppression. Then, I share a variety of spiritual frameworks to address the root cause of violence & destruction. Both of these sections (B & C) are a quite accurate summary of my brain.

If you are interested in a detailed analysis of why the scientific method has created separation, please refer to page B-3.

through connecting with & observing the world inside us & around us we may become aware of the interconnected, impermanent nature of reality • the realization that we all die & are part of the same inexplicable something may bring about compassion with others by feeling connected through love & suffering (Tolle 1999) • through this deep insight into the nature of reality, our understanding of who we are changes and allows us to operate from a new place (Tubali 2019)

I see an opportunity to liberate ourselves from destructive & oppressive social structures (social institutions and our personal selves) by integrating other forms of story telling, our emotions, our bodily experiences, our intuition, and connection to our inner source (Monica Dennis) into spaces that seek transformative change for everyone’s thriving (ecological justice) • the internal process is of importance because our body-mind-spirit complexes are the instruments through which communication & action emerge

our internal world reflects structures of external social systems (Scharmer 2015) • therefore, our inner world is a great place to start the process of self-transformation and self-improvement • the personal process will inevitably affect our social systems because our internal values and beliefs condition the social structures we create • since our social systems recreate themselves and the conditions for their emergence (Luhmann 1998), a high level of consciousness (personal & collective) of embedded values & beliefs in the system structures is essential in creating social systems conducive to a thriving world for all



Read the paper

My ongoing projects

The funnest part of my website...

Why? Because unfinished ongoing work means that I need help, and there's an opportunity to connect over shared interests. Maybe you sense a natural overlap. If so, please reach out.

What is currenlty holding my attention?

  • Energy democracy and local supply chain development: This is one of my deepest passions: building a non-extractive economy while centering the flourishing of all life. I cannot envision myself engaging in engineering without truly building caring & nurturing social systems. This is my current main journey, so if you relate, let's connect and weave together. I am developing my web of relations in this space as the Secretary of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace and in engaged relationship with the Institute of Relational Being.
  • My marble sharings: I have been craving to share my ideas more dynamically and developed an extension to this website. I call my sharings marbles. I have a collection of marbles for 🔮 ongoing projects and another one for my 🔮 most recent sharings.
  • Building digital interfaces and represenations of sustainable efforts around us: For more than two years, I have explored how to raise our systemic intelligence to co-create sustainable change across disciplines and nation-state boundaries, especially among large dislocated communited. Check out my interface explorations 🔮 over here.

I never thought I would say this, but I love LinkedIn for sharing project work and staying connected with change-makers. If you want to stay aware of my work, you can follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

A collection of creations, thoughts, and projects

You can filter my portfolio by category...

I designed this feed to elicit a potential dialogue between me and you. Every piece I share is part of an ongoing pursuit, for which I desire to build continued movement (with you?). I don't want to give the impression of "bragging." ❣

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My systems framework for the emergence of social-ecological health

I share this graphic first with you because I want to communicate the roots of my work. I desire to build a world of global health rooted in the values above. The depicted methodologies and approaches then shape my concrete work such as design, engineering, community-building, and research. Regarding this illustration, I want to emphasize the phenomenon that we can't force complex living systems to be healthy. How would you ever force a plant to be resilient and strong? All we can do is build an environment that is conducive to the emergence of health. For engineers, this has a very important implication: we need to consider the social co-creative spaces we create and not only focus on our physical projects because the space will let emerge continued engineering efforts.

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Fish-safe water turbine design and environmental research

Did you know that most water turbines produce sustainable energy but at the sacrifice of fish health? Most turbines are so sharp and fast that they kill 10-50% of all fish that pass through them (references in link below). This is a serious ecological problem. As a environmental scientist, mechanical engineer, and later on consultant, I helped Natel Energy to address this problem by conducting studies that investigated the impact of their turbine on eel and white sturgeon. I ran the data analysis, capturing, and graphics creation for our peer-reviewed study on eel passage that established Natel Energy as a leading fish-safe turbine designer.

See photos and study

Numbers that make the engineer in me think


This year, systems designed by engineers
have contributed to the following:

These numbers show me that pollution exist by design. It is not a random unindended consequence. And I believe that engineers need to wake up to this reality. If Tesla knows of child labor for mining in the Kongo, it is by design. It is part of the running system. Toxins created of mining are created by design.

What price do we pay for innovation and development? And who exactly pays for it? These toxins typically do not end up in Western nations.

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Explore my key design concepts for communication in trans-disciplinary online spaces

Systemic intelligence for ecological justice

This two-year-long project was driven by the desires of my community (including myself) to truly sense each other so we can learn how to support each other's work toward healing our planet. As a robotics engineer and human-centered designer, I wanted to envision bold yet intuitive systems grounded in human relationships. Students from my master's program (MESH), my organizer friends, and radical engineers around me are all eager to build together - yet I observe that we have no concrete space for systemic reasoning. As a complex systems thinker and (newly self-taught) illustrator, I wanted to leverage the power of visual reasoning. I conducted 16 interviews to learn what forms of coming together are needed to become collective systems thinkers while drawing energy from caring human relationships. The result is a communication design concept grounded in a digital interface design rooted in a community practice of adaptive loops and collective sensing.

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Building renewable energy systems to empower an off-the-grid permaculture commmunity

During COVID, I organized an immserive experiment with farmers in North Carolina, who agreed to host 15 engineering students to live in community and gain experience building off-the-grid systems with a direct human impact. All of our renewable developments arose from deep community dialogue around needs and long-term impact. I grew into becoming a faciliator and intentional communicator. We built several buildings form natural materials and co-developed a large-scale pan-tilt mechanisms for a five solar-panel array and a wireless system that monitored & controlled the battery system's health. I also ran a siting study for a 4 kW vertical wind turbine and prototyped its blade design. Find out more about our projects via the link below.

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How can the donation of a 50 kW turbine be leveraged to empower communities?

You might care about this project if you understand the difference between building technological quick-fixes and learning how to work with communities to bring forth their technology-aided vision. For this newly arising project, I co-developed a renewable energy solutions portfolio to empower off-the-grid communities as a consultant and member of the advisory board for the "Just Energy Hub." Part of this work was the setting of an ethical framework and methodology that lead to desired energy democracy and sovereignty. I also partnered with industrial engineering students from CalPoly San Luis Obispo to develop an ethical supply chain design for their wind turbine. I used this project to learn illustrating to convey ideas better. I hope it works for you!

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As you immerse yourself in a fish full of piano sounds, a jelly fish starts to glow...

It tickles me to use my technical skills to create whimsical, other-worldly experiences. We created an interactive ocean scene using motion sensors that triggered the emergence of piano sounds from a speaker hidden in a fish filled with fluff. A UV-light jelly fish would only turn on when someone else was immersed in the fish. Kids loved playing with the UV paints, experimenting with the changing sound scape, and hiding in the fish. We used microcontrollers and MAX MSP to adjust lights and sound to the participant's positions.

See photos & videos
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Behavior-nudging & reflection for water conservation

I built a personal water counter device for a bathroom faucet in 2019 as an intervention to induce behavior change in my community. During my master's studies, we continued this project, finding out that households without dishwashers consume 3x more water in the kitchen due to a lack of water-conserving practices. We developed a solid design interface approach that leverages intervention insights from complex systems thinking using a reflection-inducing eco-visualization approach that visualizes how much produce could have been grown with the water used.

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Study on behavior change due to increased self awareness and social engagement around environmental impact of clothing

Washing jeans and t-shirts is a high-impact and low-frequency behavior and therefore perfectely suited for an attempt to reduce water and toxin consumption by changing habits. We conducted a study with 33 particpants to assess the effectiveness of our wear-counter design, suggesting that participants wear their clothing more often if they have a tangible way to reflect on their wear count. This project taught me how to lead and conduct scientific study questionaire and design for social interventions.

Show Research Poster
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The surprising results of investigating the sustainability of two types of cups

Most of us would think that styrofoam (polystyrene) cups have a bigger burden on the environment. However, paper cups still contain a plastic coating and use a significant amount of material, which is not always recycled. We compared the two types of cups with respect to sustainable metrics and physcial properties and looked at them under an electron microscope (more for fun than for research).

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Building a soft-robotics finger actuator

This was a playful yet technical project. I have always been in awe of human fingers, and I explored using soft joints and tendons to emulate a head-scratching motion. Wouldn't it be great if we had robots to scratch our heads every night before sleeping? The world would likely be less violent...

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DJ webapp development & interface design project

I went on a long design process for memorizing DJ transitions using an interesting design tool: the Innovator's Compass by Ela Ben-Ur. Along the way, I invented a sticky-note based process and developed my own web app to save DJ transitions and share them with my friends (because it's hard to share sticky notes). Sadly, the website is currenlty spammed by bots. I will have to re-build it!

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Jewelry investement casting

Learn more about a playful project with material science roots. We mixed our own sterling silver and bronze allow. We made a graphic for the process if you want to learn. My partner and I still wear the silver ring until today! The bronze ring doesn't look quite as shiny anymore.

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