My work was mainly in supporting the operations of the Joint Innovation program. I had a diverse set of projects I was supporting from coding key participant feedback to be integrated into a report to supporting a cooperative of kelp growers go after a planning grant.

What did you accomplish with your host organization? What was the impact of your work?

The work I was doing allowed my supervisors to be freed up to work at a higher level. I had the time to really dive into complexities and synthesize these into tight, succinct informational documents to be shared internally and with partners. Two examples of this is the slide-deck I put together about the Washington Clean Fuels Standards(CFS) and the review I wrote on OCAP. The Washington CFS is a quite complex policy especially when it comes to maritime fuels. I was really able to dive into the tradeoffs of this and what it means for the maritime sector. The review I wrote on OCAP was analyzing the different scientific needs. This was sent to the Pacific Northwest National Lab where it helped to form an agenda for different scientific planning.

Describe the benefits of this experience for you professionally and personally?

It was an experience that delivered dividends to me both professionally and personally. I used every opportunity to connect with different people I met working at places I was interested in. These informational interviews helped me better see where I could fit into the larger landscape and the work I would be interested in exploring. Being physically in person in an office was amazing too as I was able to get better socialized to that environment while getting great facetime with the different people I ran into on a daily basis.

Did your experience provide any unexpected discovery, self-reflection, or epiphany?

I did, through my work I found that I really thrive on dynamic environments where my workflow changes rapidly and I have to adapt to different changes through critically prioritizing my actions. I think in these environments I am able to do my best learning and best work. I found that the best way to learn was by doing. I love graduate school, I love classes, and I love learning but I will say that without this internship I wouldn’t have been able to put the lenses and framework that I have developed to my studies into practice. Seeing where these frameworks line up with practice and, arguably, more important, where they do not line up allowed me to refine these frameworks by injecting more complexity and nuance.