What could the captain of the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team and an avid “Chopped” enthusiast possibly have in common? Besides an uncanny love for all things outdoors (and the ability to binge watch several episodes of a television series), both students are current sustainability interns at the Office of Environmental Policy! In our fourth installment of the ‘Meet the Interns’ blog, we will profile two more remarkable interns, junior Caroline and senior Hannah. Each very different in their current endeavors and career aspirations, Caroline and Hannah are brought together by a genuine passion for sustainability, a unifying trait that makes them both student environmental leaders.
Junior Caroline’s path to the OEP was nothing short of fate. As a first-semester Chemistry major in the Honors Program, Caroline hoped to continue the environmental involvement she had enjoyed in high school, where she won several accolades including the Northeast Resource Recycling Association (NRRA) Innovative Recycling Idea award, the EcoMaine Eco-Excellence award, and the Aquarion Water Company Environmental Champion Award for a compost project she coordinated her senior year. That experience led her to enroll in the one credit UNIV course in Environmental Sustainability taught by the OEP’s Director, Rich Miller. She excelled in the class, often volunteering for extra credit work, like collecting recyclables at Green Game Day – not because she needed the bonus points but because she loved making a difference.
Soon after her first semester and the UNIV course had ended, she was encouraged to apply for an OEP sustainability internship. Determined as she is about many of her goals, Caroline jumped at the chance – and the rest is history! Fast forward two years and we find an experienced, hard-working team player, who considers her internship an opportunity that has undeniably transformed her college experience. She even stayed in Connecticut this past summer and worked part-time hours at the OEP, rather than return home to New Hampshire.
Caroline’s internship has not only fulfilled her college aspiration of continued environmental involvement, but also taught her about sustainability initiatives on campus and the inter-workings of the university as a whole. Whether it’s analyzing data in order to maintain UConn’s top 10 Green Campus national rankings or manning a recycling dumpster at Rentschler Field, Caroline is all about teamwork and helping out wherever she can. In her two years as a sustainability intern, she has become an expert in her focused initiatives, namely the EcoMadness competition and Green Game Days. As a lead intern for both events, Caroline has served on the front lines for UConn community engagement and outreach covering topics from energy and water conservation to proper recycling during football games. She’s excited about traveling to Bonn, Germany for the UN’s Annual climate summit next month, as part of the UConn@COP23 contingent.
Additionally remarkable, is Caroline’s involvement outside of the office. She has previously worked as a ski instructor, and continues to serve as an undergraduate researcher, captain and secretary of the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team, and President of a newly created club, the Undergraduate Society of Plastics Engineers. An intern of the coolest proportions, the OEP is incredibly lucky to call Caroline one of their own!
Senior sustainability intern, Hannah, adds to the long list of talented undergraduates working at the OEP, as she is simultaneously earning her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Master’s in Public Policy. While her passion for environmental policy has been long evident, her involvement in campus sustainability initiatives on campus has allowed her to solidify her career aspirations. Prior to her employment at the OEP, Hannah had directed her environmental passions towards EcoHusky, where she led a successful shoe and sneaker recycling drive as an officer in the student organization. After discovering the OEP internship opportunity and successfully receiving a position, Hannah quickly became an involved member of the OEP team. In her time as an intern, Hannah has taken the lead on several initiative, such as: planning student engagement and educational activities for UConn@COP, organizing the first inter-fraternity recycling competition as part of the annual football Green Game Day, assessing grant and fundraising opportunities for the Campus Sustainability Fund, and gathering data in order to complete the survey for the GreenMetric World University rankings, in which UConn has consistently scored among the top five. Along with a select group of 12 UConn students, she traveled in November 2016 to Marrakech, Morocco for the U.N.’s 22nd annual International Climate Summit (COP22) – it was her first time abroad!
Outside of the OEP, Hannah keeps a busy schedule, but not at the expense of academics, as she is a consistent CLAS Dean’s List student. After a year as an officer in EcoHusky, she remains active in the club, is an avid outdoorswoman AND massive “Chopped” fan. Hannah is planning on an environmental career after UConn – the past two summers she interned for Dominion Energy as a Diversity Scholarship Recipient. She worked for Dominion at their environmental lab on the Connecticut coast in 2016 and, this past summer, as an environmental compliance intern at their West Virginia plant. She enjoyed and excelled at her summer jobs, so much so that she will work with them again next summer, as an energy intern, at Dominion’s corporate headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. And while Hannah is clearly on an impressive trajectory towards a career in Environmental Policy, if all else fails, you will most likely find Hannah living her life as a scuba diver recovering lost things.
And there we have it – two more of our fabulous OEP Interns!
Next week, we will meet the final set of interns, the newest members of the OEP’s sustainability team: Sophie, Jon, and myself (Wawa)!
Until then!