On Thursday, August 18, EHS Support held a special reception at our Spring Garden Collaboration Space in Philadelphia to celebrate the successful conclusion of our 2022 Summer Internship Program.
The program, launched in support of our Strategic Growth Project (SGP) initiative, featured a talented, multi-disciplinary team of students from science and engineering backgrounds with varying knowledge in hydrogeology, ecology, chemistry, engineering, and data science/geographic information systems. The 11-week assignment (June 6 to August 19) was a regional-scale assessment of the Lower Hackensack River in the U.S. Northeast. A substantial amount of pre-work was done to gather data and reports in advance of the program’s start date.
The four interns to complete the program were Samuel Meil (University of Rochester, B.S. Chemical Engineering, anticipated 2023), William Neal (University of Virginia, B.S. Environmental Science, 2022), Pagnaa Nantogmah (Drexel University, B.S. Chemical Engineering, 2022), and Ellende Chongolola (Drexel University, B.S. Chemical Engineering, 2021). Neal and Chongolola recently accepted full-time positions with EHS Support beginning in September. Meil will be continuing his relationship EHS Support on a part-time basis throughout his senior year. Nantogmah will be returning to graduate school this fall to pursue her Ph.D. in chemical engineering.
This experience introduced the interns to the real-world challenges facing private and public stakeholders in managing and compensating for environmental impacts in urban waterways within the paradigm of existing regulatory frameworks, specifically the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) commonly known as Superfund.
Thanks to the success of this group, EHS Support plans to continue the internship program in the future and continue to invest in talented young professionals who are looking for challenging, meaningful work where they can make a difference.
With the interns’ hard work and support from the EHS Support team, a massive amount of valuable information has been gathered so far in this ongoing assessment:
- 1,568 documents compiled and reviewed
- 378,704 pages of information reviewed
- 5 detailed site summaries written
- 153 one-page site synopses written
- 305 GIS layers compiled; added to web tool
- 648,895 records of analytical sediment data extracted and compiled
- 595 aerial photographs taken
- 3,000+ hours spent on project to date
Follow EHS Support for upcoming internship opportunities. To learn more about this year’s summer interns, read their spotlights below:
