At 13 years old, standing on the lower deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the night, Matt Ferrell ’97 heard a distinct splashing sound below. Peering over the deck, he watched in disbelief as crew members dumped the ship’s garbage directly into the ocean. Off in the distance, illuminated only by the moonlight, trash bobbed on the surface of the water.

"For me, that was a formative moment of like, 'that's screwed up,' " Ferrell recalls.

Matt Ferrell outdoors in glasses and a dark jacket, standing against a blurred landscape.
Matt Ferrell, posing outdoors, created a business explaining advancements in sustainable technology.
 

That disturbing moment at sea — paired with an early obsession with computers like the Commodore 64 and Apple II during his childhood — fueled a career that bridges technological innovation and environmental responsibility. Today, he is the creator of Undecided Media, a growing empire of sustainable tech content featuring his YouTube channel with close to 2 million subscribers, dedicated to explaining the latest advancements in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency to a global audience.

A screenshot from Matt Ferrell's YouTube video. He is indoors by a blue computer background, with a small photo showing a cow near solar panels.
Matt Ferrell’s most popular video so far: “Solar Panels Plus Farming? Agrivoltaics Explained” from 2022, viewed by 6.8 million.

His entrepreneurial career combining sustainability and technology provides the satisfaction of impacting people and the planet. Enough viewers have told him they’ve added solar to their homes to total over 10,000 kilowatt-hours of clean energy generated, which has ripple effects for all of their neighbors, such as reducing brownouts, contributing to cleaner air, and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

Matt kneeling on a lawn beside an EGO electric mower, holding its battery pack.
Reviewing an electric mower.

An Interdisciplinary Foundation

Ferrell’s path began in Rochester when his father, David Ferrell, Ph.D., accepted a position teaching at Nazareth. His mother briefly taught at the university as well, making the campus a staple of his upbringing. When his brother ultimately enrolled at Nazareth too, "It really truly was a family event,” Ferrell said.

His parents didn’t expect Ferrell to attend Nazareth because of the free tuition as a faculty dependent. But as he explored his college options, he found that Nazareth’s interdisciplinary offerings were a natural fit. Aspiring to work in film, television, or media, Ferrell enrolled in a major then called professional communication and information design and paired it with a theater minor. 

Matt posing outside in his graduation cap and gown next to his brother after graduating from Nazareth.
Matt Ferrell and his brother, Sean Ferrell '94, at Matt’s graduation from Nazareth in 1997.

After graduating, Ferrell earned a master’s degree in communications from Emerson College and landed a job at a small internet company just as the dot-com boom started to take off. His foundational training at Nazareth — including technical writing, computer graphics, and building web pages — supported a successful 20-year career as a user interface/user experience designer and creative director for a casino/gaming company and for his own design company.

By 2018, however, corporate burnout set in. Seeking a fresh creative outlet, Ferrell decided to combine his production skills with his passion for technology. Shortly after publishing his first YouTube video in July 2018, he was serendipitously laid off from his full-time job — an event he embraced as an opportunity. 

“My boss, who laid me off, was actually a friend,” Ferrell noted. “And when he was giving me the news, he at one point stopped and said, ‘You seem to be taking this very well. What's going on?’ And I realized I was smiling because I knew I had worked there for so long, it was going to be a great severance package, and it was going to be my seed money to start my own business.”

Matt Ferrell, wearing safety gear, films at a wind farm construction site with a crane and turbine base behind him
 Matt Ferrell (left) captures video at a wind farm getting built in Saskatchewan, Canada, that’s designed to provide power output of up to 200 MW, enough electricity for about 100,000 homes.

The Formula For Success

At first, Ferrell named the channel Undecided as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the familiar college status when students haven't declared a major yet. But then it stuck when he realized the things he liked talking about and his desire to learn more rang true to his goal for the channel: to help others make informed decisions on sustainability.  

Matt taking a selfie in front of and pointing at solar panels.
 Pointing at the solar panels on the roof of his previous home.

The channel rapidly hit its stride when Ferrell began sharing his personal experiences. First, with residential solar panels, he cut his yearly electric bill in half. (More recently, his newer home’s electricity bill is only $200 for the entire year.) Then, he shared his decision to buy the new Tesla Model 3 when it was just beginning to hit the open market and upend the auto industry. This soon developed into a winning strategy, and within two years his channel’s revenue allowed him to drop the freelance UX design work he was doing on the side and focus full-time on content creation. 

"I just kept making videos in that little sliver that overlapped in the Venn diagram of what the audience wants to hear and what I care about, and it worked," Ferrell says.

Matt posing in front of home that is under construction
Posing during construction of his net zero home in the Boston area in 2023.

Today, Undecided Media operates with a team of seven people, including writers, researchers, and producers, plus a "science advisory board" of physicists and engineers who Ferrell can reach out to about technical details. His wife has also joined the business as director of operations, overseeing backend web operations. Their ultimate goal, Ferrell said, is to build the company into an enduring platform that continues inspiring clean-tech adoption long into the future. 

Sustainable Impact

With his team's support, Ferrell approaches complex topics — from heat pumps to utility-scale energy storage — as a self-described "techno-optimist." In turn, he acknowledges that he is combating the more pessimistic and politicized rhetoric on renewable energy, especially misinformation on how the technology actually works. Ferrell emphasizes that he is simply presenting pros and cons so his viewers can make the best choices.

“I try to find that glimmer of hope,” he said. “Climate change is scary. It's an existential threat, but there are exciting things happening that we should be excited about. And so I want to have that little glimmer stay there for as long as possible.”

Matt kneeling and smiling next to a black electric Porsche car.
Reviewing an electric Porsche.

To those who are undecided, Ferrell has clearly made an impact. The 10,000 kilowatt-hours generated by his viewers translate to more than 1,000 people who have converted to solar energy, armed with his information. But what they tell him after that is where Ferrell’s passion, formed decades earlier on that cruise ship under the moonlight, comes into full view. 

“I keep hearing the same story over and over again,” he said. “They realize they could do X, Y, and Z to save even more power. They’re getting the EV and then charging their car off the sunshine. It's fun to hear the stories of other people going down the same exact path that I found myself going down.”


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