Out West Blog
Notes, photos and updates from the Center's student researchers and summer interns working at organizations across the region.
Meet the Summer 2015 Interns
Back row: Sam Klotz, Michael Gioia, Peter Salazar, Monica Masiello, Maya Lorey.
Front row: Savannah Pham, Isabella Robbins, Christina Morrisett, Katie Petway.
We are pleased to welcome 10 undergraduate students to the Bill Lane Center's 2015 summer internship program. This year, the Center is resuming collaborations with seven of our public and private partners, including two new internships with Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Our interns will explore the west through multidisciplinary lenses, including museum science, legislative research, historical ecology, statistical modeling, and more.
Stay tuned to our Out West blog for students' stories as they begin their adventures in June. Reports will start trickling in during July.
Summer 2015 Interns
| Location | Topic | Intern |
|---|---|---|
| Henry's Fork Foundation | Environmental Modeling Internship | Christina Morrisett |
| Heyday Books | Sales and Marketing Internship | Monica Masiello |
| San Francisco Estuary Institute | Resilient Landscapes Program Internship | Tyler McIntosh |
| Yellowstone National Park | Archaeology Internship | Peter Salazar |
| Yellowstone National Park | Curatorial Internship | Sam Klotz |
| Yosemite National Park | Archives & Records Management Internship | Savannah Pham |
| Yosemite National Park | Museum Internship | Isabella Robbins |
| National Conference of State Legislatures | Legislative Studies Internship | Michael Gioia |
| Golden Gate National Recreation Area | Historic Preservation Intern, Alcatraz | Maya Lorey |
| Golden Gate National Recreation Area | Historic Preservation Intern, Fort Mason | Katie Petway |
More than Just Research
Image: Taylor Burdge hiking in the Tetons Range.
By Taylor Burdge
B.S. Earth Systems, 2016
Summer Intern at the Henry's Fork Foundation
Read about our summer interns on the Out West student blog. Throughout the summer, the Center's interns and Research Assistants will be sending in virtual postcards, snapshots and reports on their summer work.
In the middle of June, I arrived at the doorstep of the Henry's Fork Foundation's office in Ashton, Idaho, unsure of what this summer would bring. I had a general idea of what I would be doing and a vague understanding of the geographical area. However, I was oblivious to the importance of the Henry's Fork Watershed and the role it plays in Idaho and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This summer furthered my appreciation for the American West, built on my field research experience, and allowed me to observe grassroots conservation efforts at work. However, my summer was more than just research – I lived in Idaho for 10 weeks and gained an appreciation for the friendly people, clean air, and laidback life that Idaho has to offer.
California Dreamin'
Image: Artifacts from the Heyday offices.
By Kristine Chen
B.S. Product Design, 2016
Summer Intern at the Heyday
Read about our summer interns on the Out West student blog. Throughout the summer, the Center's interns and Research Assistants will be sending in virtual postcards, snapshots and reports on their summer work.
Conducting sales research on prospective partner organizations and book buyers, namely nature groups and historical societies, was my primary responsibility as a marketing and events intern for Heyday. I also completed a data management project involving bookstores that carry Heyday titles, organized an evaluation of Heyday’s current website, and devised a marketing plan for the upcoming publication Under Spring.
These are the concrete means by which I measure the 10 weeks that I have spent at Heyday this summer. Yet they do little to illustrate my experience in its entirety. Heyday’s structure as both a nonprofit organization and a publishing house is nearly unprecedented – a carefully struck managerial balance. Openly communicative, lacking in bureaucracy, and focused on products as well as communities, the Berkeley-bred curiosity embodies values and characteristics that I would previously have placed in opposing camps.
Memories and Insights from Denver
By Justin Lin
B.A. Political Science Research Honors Track, 2016
Summer Intern at National Conference of State Legislatures
Read about our summer interns on the Out West student blog. Throughout the summer, the Center's interns and Research Assistants will be sending in virtual postcards, snapshots and reports on their summer work.
My experience at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has met my expectations and more. At the beginning of the summer, I expected to have a good knowledge and understanding of the initiative and referendum process as well as find out about some of the most important issues on our ballot this year. This much I did acquire, but I was also able to learn about different topics regarding state governments and legislatures that are very relevant to the issues that concern voters, such as term limits, recount law, and voter registration. Through this experience, I realized the amount of knowledge and expertise that NCSL is able to provide through the research that it does on state law.
State legislatures, media personnel, and citizens often need ready information on elections that concern them, and this information can be very wide-ranging. Not many, if any, organizations have this information available, and NCSL is able to compile information in very accessible and easy-to-read formats, be it through the various databases, reports, webpages, or manuals. Should people not be able to find what they are looking for, NCSL has ready information through documents or can direct them towards the right place to look. In this regard, NCSL provides unique and valuable information on different subjects concerning states that other organizations simply do not have.
Archaeology on the Trail
Image: Me holding our GPS in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park.
By Melanie Langa
B.A. History, 2016
Summer Intern at the Yellowstone National Park
Read about our summer interns on the Out West student blog. Throughout the summer, the Center's interns and Research Assistants will be sending in virtual postcards, snapshots and reports on their summer work.
The five weeks since my last blog post have flown by, and it’s hard to believe that my last weekend in the park is staring me in the face. I’m determined to make the most of it; I’ve made plans to get up early to look for wolves (the one Yellowstone critter I really want to see but haven’t yet) and circled at least five undone hikes on my trail map (we’ll see how many I can manage in the next three days.) Just as ten weeks is not nearly enough time to explore all the amazing trails, views and hideaways in Yellowstone, ten weeks is not nearly enough time to do more than scratch the surface of the scope of archaeology in the park. Every day I still discover more interesting files in the lab or hone my skills identifying obsidian flakes and stone tools at field sites. One experience in particular provided a chance to practice and apply all I’d learned during this internship thus far.
From July 29th to August 7th I assisted with a field project on a mountain at the eastern boundary of Yellowstone. Prior to coming to the park I’d spent time in the backcountry for backpacking or camping trips, but never for fieldwork and never for such an extended period of time. This site’s remoteness makes carrying out regular field tasks challenging. I was lucky enough to be able to tag along for all 48 miles: both the backpacking and the fieldwork portions of the expedition, and learned much as a result. Under the direction of Dan Eakin, who works for the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist and Dr. Staffan Peterson, the Yellowstone Park Archaeologist, who’s my supervisor this summer, our field crew surveyed a potential campsite for a group of Nez Perce fleeing the U.S. Cavalry in 1877.
