Excerpts from student internship reports verbatim from our students:
NCAR, Boulder, CO
“Overall, I found my trip to be very beneficial to my experiential learning, professional development, and career aspirations. My career goals include working at an organization in Colorado like NCAR. I consider the connections that I made there to be invaluable. One of the scientists that I worked with may use some of my figures in a paper he is writing, in which case I would be a coauthor on his paper, which would also be extremely beneficial to my career aspirations. I believe that I was able to further my knowledge of NRT core concepts while advancing my career as a scientist.”
-Mathew Mauch, M.S. Student, CEOAS
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, Ocean Springs, MS.
“Overall, the internship allowed me apply the knowledge gained from the NRT coursework and teamwork to practical, real-life situations. Risk and uncertainty quantification and communication, as well as transdisciplinary research in general, were consistent themes throughout my time learning about community resilience in Mississippi. I met many people within Sea Grant and from organizations that partner closely with them. I genuinely connected with many of these colleagues and it has confirmed to me that this is the kind of work I want to pursue as a career after graduation. I also formed a close professional relationship with Tracie Sempier, who has offered to write me letters of support going forward, and has been in touch since the internship to pass along fellowship opportunities she thought I would be interested in. The NRT internship at MASGC was an invaluable experience and I am excited to see where it leads.”
-Jessica Kuonen, M.S. Student, Marine Resource Management
Wave Energy Converter Control Scenarios for Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM
“My internship provided me with possible career opportunities. Prior to working at Sandia, I had only experienced research in an academic setting and it was interesting to engage in research in a national lab environment. From my interactions with those researching in academia, the expectation to both research and teach can seem challenging to juggle. So the opportunity to work at an institution who’s purpose is to research was invaluable. While my goal is still to teach someday, the ability to focus primarily on research was intriguing and I have kept in touch with those whom I worked with in order to keep potential options available. Additionally, the marine renewable energy world is relatively small and even if I don’t end up working at Sandia in the future, the contacts that I made there can provide future collaborations or lead to other potential employment opportunities. The internship with Sandia was an excellent opportunity and has proved to be invaluable to my personal research and to the further development of my professional network.”
-Chris Sharp, Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
PNNL Lab, Richland, VA
“The most impactful part of this experience for me, which is how much respect was shown for and by every person at PNNL. Everyone working at PNNL, from undergraduate interns to Scientists Emeritus, treated every other person (in all the encounters I witnessed) with utter respect for each others’ abilities and quality as a person and researcher. This was a very refreshing, new perspective to witness, and I am grateful to know that this is how the lab operates. To try to sum up my experience here in a brief way feels like a challenge to me, not just because of the number and variety of experiences, but for how much I enjoyed and appreciate them. I feel a profound change in how I view my potential career paths, and any reservations in going to this internship have been converted to enthusiasm for what kinds of future experiences I can anticipate along these lines.”
-Will Mayfield, Ph.D. Student, Mathematics
