June 24, 2014
State System university students earn top internships with Smithsonian, World Health Organization, other prestigious organizations
Contact: Kevin Hensil, khensil@passhe.edu
Harrisburg – The Smithsonian Institution. The World Health Organization. Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute. Brown University. Georgia Tech. Yale. Yosemite National Park.
They are among the most recognizable organizations, universities and locations in
the world. And they are among the places Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
university students are spending their summer, many conducting research alongside
world-renowned scientists as they prepare for their own careers.
The prestigious assignments fit right in with the State System’s recently adopted
strategic plan, which calls for the universities to “promote the use of research‐based
educational practices to enhance student achievement through programs such as internships,
undergraduate research and/or scholarship, study abroad, or first‐year experiences.”
“Through the combination of the guidance provided by our excellent faculty and their
own hard work, PASSHE students have access to extraordinary learning opportunities
that go well beyond the classroom,” said Chancellor Frank T. Brogan. “State System
universities are able to open doors to unique and rewarding internships and research
experiences that will help shape the lives and future careers of these remarkable
young people for years to come. And they are contributing in their own right to a
new body of knowledge that will benefit others, as well.”
Mr. Brogan has encouraged all of the universities to provide their students increased
opportunities to participate in educational and cultural experience outside of the
regular classroom. Those opportunities, while abundant, often are extremely competitive.
State System university students have shown they are up to the challenge.
Casey Bricker of McKeesport, a senior at California University of Pennsylvania, is
spending her summer doing research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural
History in Washington, D.C., as one of only 17 undergraduate students selected for
the highly competitive Natural History Research Experience. She is working with Dr.
Douglas Owsley, head of physical anthropology at the museum, during her 10-week internship.
Ms. Bricker will earn a bachelor’s degree in forensic anthropology, with minors in
justice studies and forensic science, at Cal U. She already has taken part in a variety
of research projects at the university, focusing on the human skeleton — in particular,
determining ancestry and gender from skeletal remains.
“This internship opportunity will allow me to enhance my skeletal analysis skills
while contributing to projects being conducted by the human osteologists at the Smithsonian,”
Ms. Bricker said.
Andre Gomes of Bushkill, a graduate student in East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania’s
public health program, is spending three months in Geneva, where he is interning with
the World Health Organization (WHO), working in the organization’s Department of Communications
along with colleagues from Bulgaria, Canada, India, Germany, Kenya, the Netherlands,
Sri Lanka and the United States.
Among his responsibilities has been to help prepare persons within the organization
who will be sent into dangerous regions that are plagued with civil unrest. He spent
several days on a Swiss army base drilling on a variety of risk-communications scenarios
as part of that effort.
“What an incredible chance I have to be in this internship with this team,” Mr. Gomes
said. “It will give me a lot of opportunities to learn, and I am committed to sharing
with my WHO colleagues everything I know from my previous work experience.”
Mr. Gomes was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and came to the United States in 1985
at the age of 21. A carpenter and builder in the family business, he later went to
work for the New York transit system. After moving to the Poconos, he changed careers
to become a certified massage therapist. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science
in public health degree at ESU in 2012 and continued in the graduate program. He will
receive his master’s degree this summer.
Samih Taylor of Bala Cynwyd, a student in Cheyney University of Pennsylvania’s Keystone
Honors Academy, is participating in two summer internships. The rising junior was
one of 18 students selected to participate in the University of Pennsylvania School
of Veterinary Medicine’s 2014 Summer VETS Program, which included an assignment at
the New Bolton Center, Penn's large animal facility.
Most of Taylor’s summer is being spent in Woods Hole, Mass., where she is participating
in the 2014 Partnership Education Program on “Ocean and Environmental Sciences: Global
Climate Change.” She is one of only 12 students selected to participate in the prestigious
program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and is working with a veteran scientist
in the area of plasticology.
“I love it,” Taylor said. "We're finding different diseases that are in areas they've
never been found in before and that's because these microbes are using the plastic
pollution that people are putting into the ocean as a conduit to get to new places—almost
like their mode of transportation."
The list goes on.
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania junior chemistry major Jocelyn Legere of York
is working on a summer research project concentrating on nanotechnology at Yale University.
Specifically, she is working with other researchers who are trying to find a way to
convert carbon dioxide – a byproduct of burning fossil fuels – into a useful product,
perhaps even an energy source of its own.
Dominic Sirianni of Kane and a student at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania is working
on a chemistry research project at Georgia Tech University as part of a study funded
by the National Science Foundation. Classmate Taylor Genstermacher of Troy is working
in the area of forensic science in a summer internship with the Ocean City, Md., Police
Department.
Josh Levitsky of Hanover, a student at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, is
serving his summer internship at Yosemite National Park, where he is studying interactions
between bears and people. A number of other students from Shippensburg are participating
in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program
at locations including Brown University and the universities of Chicago, Cincinnati
and Minnesota.
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania rising senior Kristen Rinaldi of Bloomsbury,
N.J., a mass communications major and editor of BU Now, the student-run, online news
portal, is a photo intern with Seventeen magazine in New York.
Hope Foy of Philadelphia, a junior government and political affairs major at Millersville
University of Pennsylvania, is interning with the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington,
D.C., working in the office of U.S. Rep. Chakka Fattah of Philadelphia, who serves
as the organization’s chair.
“My education at Millersville has provided me with the knowledge I need to thrive
in my internship and future career,” Ms. Foy said. “My government professors have
equipped me with the things I need to know for my internship, such as the legislative
process, knowledge of laws and different policies. I am going into this internship
with the proper knowledge, so that I will perform on an excellent level—all thanks
to my education at Millersville.”
Students from all 14 State System universities are involved in a wide range of research
projects over the summer, including a group of students from Indiana University of
Pennsylvania’s environmental biology program who are taking part in an “applied conservation”
project designed to help project the threatened Golden-Winged Warbler and students
in Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s environmental science and biology programs
who are working on a community/urban forestry project in which they will complete
an inventory of every street tree in Pottsville. Students at Slippery Rock University
of Pennsylvania are conducting a similar study in cooperation with the state Bureau
of Forestry in nearby Grove City.
Take the summer off? Not these students.
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher
education in the Commonwealth, with about 112,000 students. The 14 State System universities
offer degree and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study.
The universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro,
Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock
and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. The universities also operates branch
campuses in Oil City (Clarion), Freeport and Punxsutawney (IUP) and Clearfield (Lock
Haven), and offer classes and programs at several regional centers, including the
Dixon University Center in Harrisburg and in Center City in Philadelphia.