News Stories

Spanning the globe and addressing a wide range of issues, students in the International Environmental Policy program at the Monterey Institute are adding valuable field training to their academic studies through high quality internship placements designed to advance their career aspirations.

Nina Geller (MAIEP ’14) has focused on Chinese environmental issues in her studies and had the opportunity this summer to work with Roots & Shoots in China, an international environmental educational organization founded by Jane Goodall.

Her main project was working on content for the organization’s bilingual website, but she also participated in events, talking with locals about the environmental cost of shark-fin soup. She also helped with research and content for a bilingual brochure to be distributed to Chinese companies to compel them to sign a “no-shark” pledge. “My internship not only gave more Chinese language competency skills in environmental terms, it showed me from an NGO perspective what grassroots work is being done in China.”

 
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Nina Geller (center) interns in Beijing, China.

Tiffany Carlson’s (MAIEP ’14) concentration is Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and she spent the summer in Denmark on a Center for the Blue Economy fellowship working for Maersk Drilling. The primary project she worked on involved revamping and updating their Environmental Management Program (EMP) Advisor Tool. “From the initial set-up of the rig to its decommissioning, drilling operations inevitably leave an environmental footprint,” Tiffany says, explaining that each drilling team uses the tool to create their own EMP, thus increasing their awareness of the issues involved. “I truly enjoyed my time in Denmark and definitely feel I learned a great deal during my internship.”

Whitney Hales (MBA/MAIEP ’14) had the “amazing” opportunity to spend two months in southern Belize this summer as part of the Frontier Market Scouts program, working for Maya Mountain Cacao (MMC). The small social enterprise sources premium, organic cacao from small holder farms, centrally processes it and exports to luxury beans-to-bar chocolate makers. “As a business and environmental policy student, I was drawn to the MMC by its mission,” Whitney shares and adds that she assisted in laying the foundation for establishing the non-profit, designed and published the 2013 Impact Repost and managed all social media marketing. “MMC’s focus on addressing both social and environmental problems while providing a high-quality, desired product provided me with the ideal learning experience and job skill development needed to prepare me for the future work I wish to have.”

For More Information

Jason Warburg
jwarburg@middlebury.edu
831.647.3156

Eva Gudbergsdottir
eva@middlebury.edu
831.647.6606