Scholar Reflections

  1. 5 Lessons Learned While Working With the Sierra Club

    January 8, 2019

    By Gabbie Buendia (Rollins College) and Emily Rau (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Our main focus this summer was working with the Rain Gardens to the Rescue program. This program teaches interested Detroit residents about the benefits and construction of rain gardens. Once residents graduate from the program, Friends of the Rouge and Sierra Club assist them in Read more


  2. An infectious summer of fun and growth: a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar in EEB

    January 8, 2019

    Emily Chang, University of Michigan. 2018 DDCSP Scholar. The work-in-progress that was the Biological Sciences Building was always eye-catching, its glassy exterior looking impressive, daunting, and… science-y. Throughout my winter semester of freshman year, it simply blended in with the daily landscape of people, plants, and the perpetual construction of Ann Arbor. I would take Read more


  3. Ecology Center: Acquiring New Perspectives in Food Systems Work Beyond Academia

    August 4, 2018

    By Kelly Lam, Wesleyan University This summer, I interned at the Ann Arbor Ecology Center under Lindsey Scalera, the Farm to Institution Campaign Director. My journey with sustainable food systems sprouted in a food systems class taught by my peers, freshman year of college. Until this summer, my exposure to sustainable food had not strayed far from Read more


  4. Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner: Gardening for Water Conservation

    August 4, 2018

    By Ryan Nelson, Wesleyan University. Like most kids, I was fascinated with water. From hosting car window raindrop drag races on road trips with my siblings, to spending every summer weekday at the pool (my mom called it her daycare-in-disguise), to reverting the backyard into mud by treating it like a slip-in-slide after every large Read more


  5. Sierra Club in Detroit: Community Engagement, Activism, Citizenship & a Green Future

    August 4, 2018

    By Marvin Bell, Amherst College. These past two summers as a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar have encouraged me to examine the various ways that communities in Michigan interact with the environment. In the midst of this examination, I learned about some of the most pressing environmental concerns of our age, I traveled to Flint, Michigan Read more


  6. The Great Lakes Commission: Creating Resources for Source Water Protection

    August 4, 2018

    By Jannice Newson, University of Missouri. This summer, I spent my time as an intern at the Great Lakes Commission (GLC), working on their Blue Accounting Program’s Source Water Initiative under program manager Nicole Zacharda. The Source Water Initiative is one of the six projects that currently comprise the Blue Accounting information system. This project looks Read more


  7. Growing Hope: Community Outreach through Gardening

    September 29, 2017

    By: Emily Guilu Murphy, Wesleyan University. This summer I had the privilege to work with Growing Hope as their garden intern. Growing Hope is a non-profit started in Ypsilanti “dedicated to helping people improve their lives and communities through gardening and increasing access to healthy food.” (Source: http://growinghope.net/about-us/mission-impact/) Mondays: Propagation and Watering 9:00AM Hoop House In Read more


  8. Huron River Watershed Council: Connecting People with the Environment

    September 29, 2017

    By Trina Dhar, Barnard College. This summer, I interned at the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC), a local nonprofit organization that is dedicated to protecting the Huron River located in southeastern Michigan. A large aspect of my job was going outside and collecting data. I joined the creek walking interns to walk along tributaries of the Huron Read more


  9. Legacy Land Conservation: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Land Conservation

    September 15, 2017

    By Malia Molina, Carleton College. It was three days before my second summer with the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program and I was excited to say the least. Not only to see the friends I had made last year, but also to once again be a part of a program that so seamlessly integrated all Read more


  10. Sierra Club in Detroit: Rain Gardens to the Rescue

    September 15, 2017

    By Ryan Anderson, Brown University. Upon arriving at my internship, I was very excited to see what opportunities lay ahead of me. I was particularly interested in seeing what working in a small office for an NGO could look like, and I have not been disappointed by the plethora of projects offered to me. The Read more


  11. NOAA: Diving Deeper into Research on Invasive Mussels in Lake Huron

    August 23, 2017

    By Jenny Par, Loyola University Chicago. This summer, I worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) with Dr. Ashley Elgin and Dr. Ed Rutherford. This was my second year working as an intern at NOAA GLERL.  In both years, my project focused on invasive dreissenid mussels (i.e., quagga and zebra mussels).  Read more


  12. Great Lakes Commission: Getting a Taste of Environmental Policy

    August 18, 2017

    By Yorick Oden-Plants, College of William and Mary.  As an intern at the Great Lakes Commission (GLC), my work was focused on answering important questions concerning the inspection and maintenance of crude oil transmission pipelines in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River region. These questions were designed to garner ancillary information on best practices used to increase Read more


  13. Michigan League of Conservation Voters: Protecting Communities through Advocacy

    August 18, 2017

    By Danielle Moni-Zo’obo, Hamilton College. As the start of my internship at the Michigan League of Conservation Voters (MLCV) loomed ahead of me, I was both nervous and excited to intern for an organization whose work coincided with my own interests. From what I had gathered from previous online research on the organization and through conversations with Read more