Recent Graduates

Sam McAleese, Class of 2010

Last summer, I was the Northwestern Circumnavigator Travel-Scholar; I received $9,000 to circumnavigate the globe to conduct research in seven countries on four continents. My research, which studied the relationship between national park policy and local communities, was inspired by my work in the EPC program. I worked with conservation agencies from the public and private sector, including Oxford University's Environment Change Institute. My classwork in the EPC program prepared me for applying the fundamentals of environmental policy in real world situations. A few of the amazing experiences I had during my trip were that I helped draft resolutions to try to stop oil exploration in the Amazon, worked with indigenous corporations in the Australian outback, and talked with international environmental organizations on the best way to influence local politics. It was the summer of a lifetime!

 

Stephanie Jarzemsky, 2009

This summer I worked for Carbon Solutions Group, an environmental asset-consulting firm based in Chicago.  The firm offers a variety of services, from consulting on greenhouse gas reduction projects, to giving carbon workshops in order to build capacity within companies, in addition to trading carbon offsets and Renewable Energy Certificates.  After guiding clients in identifying and executing greenhouse gas reduction projects, CSG monetizes and trades the assets generated by the project on the US's voluntary carbon markets.  Interning with Carbon Solutions Group was a great experience for me because I learned about the US's quickly expanding carbon market first-hand.  It was very exciting to watch renewable energy technologies and the carbon market grow in the US and abroad, and I got to learn about some pretty creative ways to generate renewable energy!  I played a flexible role as an intern.  My tasks included policy research for CSG's white papers on environmental legislation, negotiating with clients interested in or working on GHG reduction projects, and navigating carbon markets around the world in order to work with some of CSG's international clients.  The whole experience really showed me the future of carbon projects in the US, and I can't wait to see how new environmental policy shapes this emerging market.  

Julia Steege, 2009

I fulfilled a lifelong dream when together with Elizabeth Henley (’09) we created a children’s book while studying abroad in Bolivia last year. The bilingual (English/Spanish) book, Esperanza, focuses on how it feels for one person to leave her childhood home in rural Bolivia as a teenager, then return home as an adult. I wrote the book and Elizabeth illustrated it after we spent two weeks interviewing the book’s protagonist, Esperanza Angelo, at her birthplace in Tambillo, Bolivia, and photographing places and people relevant to Esperanza’s story. We are currently working on getting the book published in Bolivia. We are also trying to secure funding to return to Bolivia to write more bi/trilingual oral history-based children’s books reflecting Bolivia’s cultural diversity. I believe that my academic background in environmental policy and culture and anthropology has given me the perfect training for my passion and helped me understand how cultural diversity supports ecological health and how important individuals’ stories are for learning the cultural history of societies. 

October 6, 2011