Tag Archives: 2019

A Postcard from: Aldercy Lam ’19

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Every morning, I am encouraged to take a moment to think about how I am feeling, why I feel that way, and what I can do to feel my best. Whether it be working out, getting another hour of sleep, or getting a meal with friends before going into the office, this internship is untraditional in the best sense possible. I stumbled upon this organization while I was searching for an internship to do this summer, however, I didn’t expect that I would get way more than a position to put on my resume.

Laptop computer on desk

In the past, I’ve had amazing experiences with nonprofit organizations before, I did things that I loved and I met a lot of people, but in this position I was able to combine my knack for nonprofit work with a special focus on my own growth. My experience this summer has been incredibly transformative. As a rising senior, I’ve been able to appreciate and fully take advantage of the professional and personal growth opportunities this internship has provided me with.

This organization I am working with is called Calm Clarity. It is a social enterprise with a nonprofit side. The founder, who is my supervisor for the summer, uses this organization to teach people about the benefits of mindfulness and how we can utilize being mindful to overcome obstacles in our lives. After quitting a successful role in consulting, she went through a long journey of spiritual awakening, and brought back the idea of Calm Clarity to share with as many people as possible. In addition to founding this organization, she recently published a book in the spring about her story and her teachings.

I feel extremely lucky because I’ve not only attended a Calm Clarity retreat and read the book, but I’ve also been able to gain so much wisdom from the guidance of my supervisor. It’s been inspirational to work with someone successful who comes from a background that is similar to mine. It isn’t often that I meet a Vietnamese-Chinese woman who has made it out of the low-income neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

The work I’ve been doing this summer is focused on the nonprofit side of the organization. Besides from marketing these Mindfulness retreats to professionals, Calm Clarity has a College Scholars Program where they invite first-generation and low-income college students to attend at no cost. As a College Scholar myself, I’ve been working on reviewing and expanding the program by interviewing past college scholars, going through feedback surveys, and getting in contact with universities that may want to collaborate with Calm Clarity. Additionally, I’ve been figuring out ways to improve the social media use of Calm Clarity in order to support College Scholar Alumni and target more students to join. If you’re reading this, follow Calm Clarity on Instagram and Twitter! I promise there will be more content soon. Another exciting project I’m working on is figuring out how to bring Calm Clarity on campus, so be on the lookout for mindfulness clubs and flyers on campus!

A Postcard From: Junyan Duan ’19

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Name: Junyan Duan
Class Year: 2019
Major: Mathematics
Hometown: Nanjing, China

Internship Placement: SMALL Undergraduate Research Project at Williams College
Job Title: Student Researcher
Location: Williamstown, Mass.

Williams College campus

Williams College campus

What is happening at your internship?

SMALL at Williams College is a 10-week program that provides research opportunities for undergraduates in math-related fields. Together with three other undergraduate students, I’m working on two mathematical ecology projects: One focuses on the spread and control of white nose syndrome in bats and the other focuses on ecosystem federalism.

Caused by a fungus called P. destructans, white nose syndrome (WNS) constantly wakes up hibernating bats, and this leads to drastic depletion in fat storage and then starvation-related death before spring. WNS was first detected in New York in 2006 and has spread out in the U.S. Because the rate of disease-induced mortality is so high, ecologists predict that some bat species will go extinct by 2023. As it’s not reasonable to do large-scale experiments on those bats, using mathematical models to simulate the situation is a better choice. We have updated the model and tested several potential control methods suggested by biologists and ecologists according to their data collected in labs.

For the ecosystem federalism project, we focus mainly on disease outbreaks. We developed SIR models to study disease dynamics and to see how different levels of government influence the outcome.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I applied for this internship because of my passion for both biology and mathematics. At the end of my sophomore year, I settled my mind to focus on applied math, especially mathematical biology, which is the overlap of the two fields. After going through a list of REU programs, I applied to several that offered research opportunities in mathematical biology (or mathematical ecology).

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

Williamstown is surrounded by mountains and the closest airport is in Albany, which is about 30 miles away. Williamstown is small but filled with fun activities in the summer. Williams College Museum of Art offers free lecture series and music events in July and those talks are always fun and inspiring. Clark Art Institute is an art museum within walking distance and SMALL students often go there on weekends. MASS MOCA is another art museum nearby and it’s a good place to go to as well. Williamstown Theater Festival started around the beginning of July, and this year Matthew Broderick came and performed in one of the comedies.

Williams College Shop

Williams College Shop

SMALL students also organize fun activities such as hiking, movie nights, ballroom dance and game nights.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

Besides what I do every day, such as researching, developing models and analyzing results, going to science lunch and talks as well as math department tea events and talks is my favorite part of this internship. The talks expand my knowledge not only math, but also in various fields such as material science and ornithology. Tea and lunch events allow me to communicate with professors and students and learn more about other students’ research.

A Postcard From: Emily Oriel ’19

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Internship Placement: Frudakis Studio

The most significant thing I’ve learned so far from my internship is that being a sculptor is a lot different than being a sculpture student. A lot different.

Emily Oriel and sculpture

 

The assignments don’t just appear as part of a course curriculum. The artists need to prove themselves every day and fight to get the work. There’s also all the mingling and interviews you should be doing to make sure you are “out there”. Finally, a huge component of being an independent artist is that you need to make your own schedule and be on top of it 24/7.

As part of my internship I am learning how to sculpt “the mask” — I am making my own self portrait in clay on top of a wooden surface that is serving as a frame and background. (The result could potentially be cast in bronze or any other medium later). This is a close study of the anatomy of the face as well as a way of learning figurative sculpture. The process of sculpting my own face teaches me a lot about myself and allows me to practice the skill of turning a 2-D mirror reflection or printed images into a 3-D product.

Sculpting in the studio also allows me to invest time in planning my upcoming senior thesis in sculpture and better understand how much effort and time the execution of certain ideas would require. I am witnessing the planning behind big projects the artist is considering and learning to pay attention to many details I was not aware of prior to the internship. Another aspect of learning (I did not expect) is the exposure to many different sculpting styles; I get to meet many artists that work with or are friends with Zenos Frudakis and each of them is an inspiration. I am seeing how artists never stop growing, criticizing each other, and asking one another for help and advice. The collaborations allow everyone to produce better work and avoid getting fixed on problems they encounter in the process.

The other part of my internship is to create a catalogue raisonne. I am documenting a comprehensive listing of all the art works produced by Zenos Frudakis in the past 40 years. This is an interesting project because the approach to gathering the information I seek needs to change all the time. I have used various methods to collect information about the works such as online searching, interviews, reviewing thank you letters, receipts, resumes the artist submitted over the years, and connecting with people who know the artist. I also utilized many of the resources the college offers such as the library databases, meeting with a librarian who specializes in art history (thank you Laura Surtees), and reviewing published Catalogs that feature similar works.

I am expecting my internship to continue to be fascinating and fulfilling and look forward to seeing my projects completed.

A Postcard From: Kinbrae Sperstad ’19

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Name: Kinbrae Sperstad
Class Year: 2019
Major: Psychology

Internship Placement: Harmony Theater
Location: Philadelphia region

This summer, I’ve been working as a development intern for Harmony Theater Company, a theater group for adults with disabilities. Harmony puts on two shows a year, one in late November and another in mid-May, so there is no rehearsal during the summer. However, I got to meet a number of actors last week, when Harmony took a trip to the Phillies game for the Fourth of July! Harmony actors range in age from 18 to 80 and live in the five-county greater Philadelphia area. Currently, Harmony doesn’t have an office; shows and rehearsals are held in a local church, so I’ve been working remotely. I meet with Harmony’s executive director about once a week—usually we go to a coffee shop—to talk about my progress and what my next step will be. Most days, I end up working at Green Engine, a coffee shop in Haverford. I highly recommend their matcha latte and yogurt with granola!

Harmony Theater has been an organization for almost 20 years, but only became a nonprofit about five years ago. Harmony hopes, one day, to have its own space with an auditorium and a storefront, creating job opportunities for individuals with disabilities. For their entire existence, Harmony has been mostly supported through small donations from family members and businesses. In order to grow their program and make it more accessible to low-income individuals, Harmony needs to find funding from other sources. That’s where my internship comes in! I am working on finding potential funding sources, grant-makers, for Harmony. Thanks to a LILAC intensive I did over Spring Break 2017, and a mini internship I had with a Philadelphia nonprofit that spring, I have the skills needed to research and write grants for nonprofits.

Last Thursday, I went to the Free Library of Philadelphia to visit the Regional Foundation Center. The foundation center has access to specialized databases used to find and research grant-makers and determine those that would be a good match. I first visited the foundation center and had training on how to use some of its databases during the LILAC intensive I did during Spring Break 2017. Because the databases are very expensive and only accessible at the Free Library’s main location on the parkway, I now have spreadsheets of hundreds of potential funders for Harmony. My next step in the coming weeks will be to sift through the data I have in order to determine which grant-makers will be the best match for Harmony. Understanding which grants to apply for is essential, as it ensures an organization doesn’t waste time on applications it’s not a match for. While the skills I learned in the LILAC intensive are important for grant work, I am also using the skills I’ve gained in all of my Bryn Mawr education. As a psychology major, I’ve had a lot of experience writing academic papers and have learned to be accurate and concise in my writing. This is another essential skill for grant writing. I am glad to be able to, in this short period, help Harmony find grants in order to further its mission and impact!

A Postcard From: Paola Salas ’19

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Name: Paola Salas
Class Year: 2019

Internship Placement: Massachusetts General Hospital’s Disparities Research Unit

This summer I am interning at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Disparities Research Unit. This research lab focuses on understanding health disparities and in developing interventions that could help address them. I am mainly working on their Positive Minds-Strong Bodies project, which is testing an intervention to the mental and physical health disparities among minority elders. This project offers a combination of counseling sessions with community health workers as well as physical exercise classes.

I heard about the disparities research unit through my scholarship foundation, Posse, last year. The associate director had reached out to the Posse career trainer and let her know that they were looking for qualified interns. It was the first time I had heard about a lab doing work specifically on disparities, which I think is so important. I wasn’t able to work for them that summer, but as soon as I returned from study abroad in the winter, I emailed the associate director about my interest and interviewed for the position that I now have.

When I first heard about the Positive Minds-Strong Bodies project, I was really excited because by recognizing that minority elders are at a disadvantage and making sure to offer services that are beneficial to them (in the appropriate languages, with culturally competent staff, tailored to their needs, etc.) this project is combining social justice concerns with health ones.

I was really excited to get to work on such a cool project, but at the same time I was nervous that the work I would do for it would be monotonous. I’ve interned at other research labs before and have always felt as if the work tends to be unfulfilling. However, as soon as I started working here, I immediately got trained to conduct the interviews with participants which is the number one task I wanted to get involved with. So far, I’ve conducted a handful of interviews in both English and Spanish and have really enjoyed being given the opportunity to interact with the population that we’re working with and to develop meaningful connections.

It’s gone so well that I’ve even begun to help out with a different project led by a colleague of my supervisor. This other project is being carried out by MGH and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and it focuses on the lack of medical compliance among HIV positive Latinx immigrants. This project offers an intervention with community health worker sessions as well as viewing a telenovela (that they developed themselves) with an HIV-positive main character. I’ve gotten to help them conduct their exit interviews and that has been another incredible experience.

What I find most valuable about this specific internship placement is that the people in this research lab seem to be truly invested in my learning. The principal investigator has bi-weekly meetings with all of the interns to discuss how our experiences are going and how we can maximize what we get out of the internship. Being that I am gearing up towards senior year, I am so grateful that I get to experience this kind of work and make these kinds of connections.

A Postcard From: Sofia Colosimo ’19

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Name: Sofia Colosimo
Class Year: 2019
Major: International Studies

Internship Placement: She’s the First
Job Title: Editorial and Fundraising Intern
Location: New York

This summer, I am working with a nonprofit organization called She’s the First as an Editorial and Fundraising Intern. She’s the First offers scholarships to girls in low-income countries who are the first in their family to attend high school. They are partnered with organizations in 11 different countries and work holistically to provide support with not only the cost of tuition, but other expenses like food, clothing, school supplies, and family needs to ensure that She’s the First scholars have everything they need to succeed academically. In addition to the Scholarship program, STF also has campus chapters at colleges in the U.S. (Bryn Mawr has a chapter!) and all over the world to help fundraise and increase awareness on issues that affect girls and women globally.

Working at STF has been a wonderful experience. The three other interns and I joined a small group of only six ladies who keep STF afloat all year round. It has been inspiring and refreshing to work for an organization founded and run by women and in an office of all women. The staff at STF does everything from the day-to-day minutiae in the office to huge efforts on the ground in the countries they’ve partnered with, and it has been great to see these processes first hand. This small office environment has given me the chance to do more hands-on work with donor communications, social media planning and posting, and even some writing!

The things that I’ve done so far at STF have definitely connected to the work that I do at school as a co-editor of *the college news*, Bryn Mawr’s feminist newspaper. In this role, my other co-editor and I spend a lot of time brainstorming interesting topics and molding impactful and engaging monthly issues that will both inform and entertain Bryn Mawr students. This past week, I curated an editorial calendar for one of STF’s new social media efforts: “Hers-days.” I researched interesting women from history who were “firsts” in their respective fields and turned their stories into a weekly segment that will be featured on STF’s Instagram. The series debuted at the beginning of this week when we featured Junko Tabei, the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest! Projects like this one have been so exciting for me because my supervisor gave me a lot of freedom and control over the programming for “Hers-days” and I felt a lot of ownership and pride when I saw the finished product.

I’ve had a great time at STF this summer. From living in New York, to working alongside such kind and accomplished women, to starting to feel more comfortable and capable in professional settings, this internship has offered me a lot of opportunities to grow and learn. STF is a really interesting and uniquely run organization and I’ve loved getting a peek inside how organizations like STF organize to make a lasting impact. I encourage Bryn Mawr students to check out the She’s the First campus chapter at BMC and get involved!

A Postcard From: Maryanne Kihiu ’19

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Name: Maryanne Kihiu
Class Year: 2019
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Hometown: Kiambu, Kenya

Internship Placement: Penn Medicine
Job Title: College Student Research Assistant
Location: Philadelphia

Maryanne Kihiu

What’s happening at your internship? 

This summer, I am interning at Penn Medicine; specifically, I am working in a lab that investigates various methods of increasing the avidity of certain immunotherapies against ovarian cancer. The overall goal of my project is to identify and enrich for tumor reactive lymphocytes from populations of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, usually referred to as TILS. The TILS are harvested from tumors resected from patients suffering from ovarian cancer.  So far, I have mainly been working on cell cultures and exploring different kinds of chemical conditions that would give me the highest expansion of the desired population.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I took a Biology of Cancer class in my freshman year, which I found to be very eye-opening on what cancer really meant. This class mainly covered the biological aspect of cancer but I also wanted to know more about the treatment aspect. This internship provides me with that experience.

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

The amount of patience and care it takes to expand lymphocyte cultures in an aseptic environment. Before, I had only worked on bacterial cultures which are not very demanding. Also, you would think that since these are immune cells, they would not require so much attention. Ironically, they require so much care and in a very clean environment in order for them to grow to robust cells that can confer immunity to the body. Their life through development and function is inherently ironical.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

Building, Insightful, Fun

Experience, Essence, Teamwork

 

A Postcard From: Zauraiz Syeda ’19

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Name: Zauraiz Syeda
Class Year: 2019
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Hometown: Croydon, Pa.

Internship Placement: CHOP and Thomas Jefferson Hospital
Job Title: Academic Associate
Location: Philadelphia

Zauraiz Syeda and class

This summer I’m interning at two different hospitals: CHOP in West Philly, and Jefferson Hospital in Center City. At both locations, I’m working as part of clinical research teams in the emergency department. The goal of my internships is to act as a liaison between each research team and the emergency department physicians to screen, recruit, and properly consent patients for a variety of studies going on at each hospital. This includes making sure a patient is eligible for a study, checking with their physician about potential exclusion factors, explaining the study to the patient and their parents/family, and enrolling them in the study if they are interested. In addition to this, I attend weekly seminars that introduce me and the other AA’s to the basics of research design, research ethics, data collection, and good clinical practice. We get the opportunity to learn about other topics as well, such as chest pain and heart failure, wound management and how to suture, how to ultrasound, and how emergency and trauma patients are triaged.

Zauraiz Syeda in ER

I also have a final project where I design hypothetical studies after learning about the strengths and weaknesses of various study designs. At Jefferson, the other interns and I also get a chance to work with the JeffDESIGN team that teaches medical students at Sydney Kimmel Medical College to apply critical thinking to redesign healthcare systems. This program involves interactive workshops facilitated by designers, architects, and medical device makers. I think it’s absolutely essential for pre-meds/med students to learn the skills to solve healthcare challenges, especially with our ever-changing healthcare system, and I’m excited to be able to work with them!

After taking the Sociology of Bioethics class at Bryn Mawr, I became very interested in the history of ethics, informed consent, and how it relates to clinical research in medical settings. Working at both CHOP and Jefferson allows me to compare the process of informed consent between different populations. At CHOP I mostly see children and young adults, whereas at Jefferson I’m interacting with young adults, middle-aged people, and the elderly. An important difference in consenting patients at CHOP is that they are usually unable to provide consent since they are too young. Instead, we ask their parents to provide consent, and we obtain assent from children who are old enough to understand what the study is asking for. Since CHOP is one of the leading hospitals in the area for children, I see a lot of very sick or very injured young kids, which can sometimes be scary. I love interacting with all the children though, and I’ve learned that working at a children’s hospital involves taking care of worried parents just as much as taking care of their kids. My work as an intern also directly relates to what I learned in my Experimental Design and Statistics Class, where I learned the importance of random sampling, good data collection, and how to describe and interpret data in a way that makes it applicable. It’s exciting to see what I learned in my classes being used in the real world, and I want to continue my internship as a Praxis Independent Study in the fall!

In addition to my internship, I’ve been trying to explore what Philly has to offer. I’m living in an apartment with four amazing Penn students, and there are lots of BMC students nearby, too! I’m always meeting new people and learning about new places to go, recipes to try out, and books to read — it’s been both busy and relaxing!

A Postcard From: Marina Herbst ’19

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Name: Marina Herbst
Class Year: 2019
Major: Political Science/ Philosophy
Hometown: Chicago

Internship Placement: Agent Publishing LLC
Job Title: Marketing Intern
Location: Chicago

What’s happening at your internship?

My internship at Agent Publishing has been sales and marketing focused. Every day consists of advertising and content creation for AgentEDU’s webpage and social media outlets. Within this space, I advertise to agents and sellers in the real estate market, as well as any individual looking for advice on how to find the right agents for their own personal home search. Furthermore, AgentEDU’s courses cater towards those seeking out professional guidance on how to become more successful as an agent or real estate assistant. Thus far, my supervisor allots a project every day or every two days, depending on the size of the project. In addition to content creation and creative copy assignments, I have also taken several courses online, learning about various marketing tools that use data analytics such as Google AdWords as well as managing programming and coding behind Facebook and other social media sites.

Why did you apply for this internship?

Attending a liberal arts college where business and marketing classes are not an option, I use my summers to seek out internships that will be able to further my knowledge of marketing and advertising for future career opportunities. Furthermore, growing up in a downtown neighborhood of Chicago where architecture is huge and unique, housing developments and real-estate have always interested me. My grandfather also works in housing development and real estate, and my entire life I had the opportunity to observe the process of real estate development and how much time, energy and patience is required in buying, selling, developing, and improving old buildings. While this company is not a real estate development firm, it does operate as a third-party company that works directly with real estate agents. Through this experience of working in a real estate company in Chicago, I hope to learn not only a new field of business that I have had a sufficient affinity for, but also to relish the opportunity of having an internship in my hometown, a place I wish to live and potentially grow in my career.

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

Something I have learned from this internship that was unexpected was regarding data analytics and the overwhelming importance it has in determining consumer trends on not only the digital front but also on the personal level. When managing a website for a company. it is imperative to use Google Analytics to determine your website’s traffic levels. By learning how to measure site traffic, ad performance and conversions, I was able to properly tackle marketing projects more effectively. Through the various lessons I become proficient in understanding traffic reports, tracking engagement by learning how to read behavior reports, as well as how to use site content reports that caters toward a more in-depth analysis of consumer trends.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

  • Adjectives: Creative, Beneficial, and Informative
  • Nouns: Real Estate, Content Creation, Communication

A Postcard From: Rebecca Kaplan ’19

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Name: Rebecca Kaplan
Class Year: 2019
Major: Psychology
Hometown: New York City

 

Internship Placement: ESTEEM Research Group/Yale School of Public Health
Job Title: Summer Research Assistant
Location: New York City

What’s happening at your internship? 

I’m working with a team of researchers from the Yale School of Public Health who want to learn about ways to improve the mental health and wellbeing of the LGBTQ+ community. Our main study, ESTEEM (Effective Skills to Empower Effective Men), has been running for three years, and is investigating different types of psychotherapy with the goal of improving mental health and reducing risk of contracting HIV for queer men. The other study, Project EQuIP (Empowering Queer Identities in Psychotherapy), is an adaptation of the ESTEEM protocol for queer women that officially launched a few weeks ago. Much of my work involves recruiting new participants for both studies, as well as collecting data from current participants.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I knew that I wanted to spend this summer getting research experience, and although I had been interested in both mental health and LGBTQ+ issues for a long time, ESTEEM was the first research lab I found working at the intersection of these areas.

Was there anything special about how you found this internship?

I found out about this internship through a Bryn Mawr alum, who was working at the lab as a study psychotherapist at the time. She emailed the psychology department listserv about an opportunity for a full-time research assistantship at the lab. Although they were not advertising for summer-only RAs at the time, I was interested enough in what they were doing that I decided to email the principal investigator directly.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

I enjoy the work we’re doing to recruit new participants for the studies. We are always trying to come up with new recruitment strategies, which allows us to be creative. We’re currently reaching out to several organizations in the area, ranging from bookstores to mental health service providers to houses of worship, to form partnerships in the community, and we recently ran a booth at NYC Pride with the other Summer RAs (in the photo above).