Hi all! My summer has been very busy with work as I’m sure everyone’s has. Throughout the summer I continued my work with the Virgil Group as a Research Analyst. For context, the Virgil Group is an environmental consultancy and in this past spring semester I worked as a Policy Analyst Intern to research the connection between IUU fishing and transnational organized crime. I concluded my internship with an issue brief (which you can read here) and since then it has been extremely exciting to get involved with the rest of the work that Virgil does.

Virgil Group is a woman-led startup that is in the process of developing two pieces of software: SeafoodCheck and Boathouse. My work has been primarily focused on helping to develop SeafoodCheck which aims to address challenges facing seafood traceability and illegal seafood in trade. To do so, the software uses global datasets to assess fishery, vessel, permit, and location information to detect whether the fishery and inputted information make sense together. Here is where most of my work lies. I have spent a lot of the summer independently researching for various global datasets and developing relationships with experts in government and industry. I’ve also had the privilege of attending webinars and meetings with subject matter experts that have been extremely insightful and eye-opening into the inner workings of national and international agencies.

This work can be draining at times since it is a lot of independent work and research, however I have thoroughly enjoyed it and am happy that I am continuing to work in this role for the remainder of the year. Being able to work for a startup in these early stages and play a role in meetings to discuss the growth of the company and software is very exciting.

Between working two jobs this summer – I also worked as a server at an Italian restaurant in PG called Il Vecchio – I was lucky enough to get a break between ending my internship and beginning my work as a Research Analyst. In this time, my brother and I traveled to the Southeastern coast of Spain and Italy for two weeks and had an amazing time.