Celebrating Students’ Achievements: 2022-2023 Impact Report Released
![a group of students discussing coffee in rural Colombia](/institute/sites/default/files/styles/1040x585/public/2023-12/Alejandro%20Franco%2C%20the%20President%20of%20Norte%20Nativa%20discusses%20the%20coffee%20drying%20process%20%28Credit_%20Gabriel%20Guill%C3%A9n%29.jpg?fv=ziVuw5rs&itok=1V4wBWy2)
Join us in celebrating the professional and research accomplishments of Middlebury Institute students documented in our 2022-2023 annual Experiential Learning Impact Report.
The Experiential Learning team released the fifth annual Experiential Learning Impact Report featuring student professional and academic impact during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The Impact Report highlights projects, including theses, internships, research projects, and other practicums that were completed in the 2022-2023 academic year by MIIS graduate students. Many of these opportunities were made possible by the Experiential Learning fund, which allowed students to carry out their research abroad and here in Monterey.
The Impact Report is divided into specific academic programs and research centers that encourage MIIS students to utilize their academic skills to discover, connect, and solve the world’s most pressing challenges. The Impact Report represents a diverse sampling of what students can achieve here at MIIS.
We are pleased that the Impact Report will continue to give witness to the amazing strides made by students here as well as the quality of guidance from professors, alumni, and other professionals.
Environmental Policy Student Wins Boren Award to Study in Vietnam
Middlebury Institute student Noemi Agagianian MAIEP ’22 recently won a Boren Award, providing up to $25,000 in fellowship funding for graduate students to learn “less commonly taught languages in world regions critical to U.S. interests.”
![student standing in front of a marine landscape](/institute/sites/default/files/2023-12/ElleBent_0.jpg?fv=-jmnwgWr)
Elle Bent was one of the CBE (Center for Blue Economy) fellows and worked with SARGADOM during the to further efforts to implement conservation and sustainable development efforts for the ThermalDome, a marine biodiversity hotspot in the high seas.
Field Work: Saving Polar Bears Is a Complex Geopolitical Puzzle
The Arctic has always beckoned to environmental policy student Alex Shahbazi. He felt fortunate when he landed an internship with Polar Bears International (PBI), an organization he had long admired since his days working at a zoo straight out of college. The timing worked out well: PBI was establishing a policy department when Shahbazi was looking for a Professional Service Semester. They needed someone with the capacity to focus on what they were trying to do, specifically with the polar bear range states—the five countries that touch the Arctic Circle. His internship focused most closely on the Circumpolar Action Plan, a 10-year collaboration among the countries in which polar bears live, to make progress on polar bear conservation.
For More Information
Contact: experientiallearning@middlebury.edu