The Office of Sustainability provides hands-on, applied internships to enhance the personal, professional, and academic goals of graduate and undergraduate students. Grouped into Communications, Engagement and Research & Operations cohorts, the 2022 Academic Year welcomed both new and returning students to create meaningful impact in each of these areas. Read about each intern’s story and about their ongoing sustainable efforts on campus.
Communications
Communications Interns connect the JHU community to the work of the Office of Sustainability through social media, blog posts, graphic design, and a variety of other communicative means.
Mansha Kapur
INDIA
Senior majoring in Physics, Mathematics, and Molecular and Cellular Biology
The campus is a mini-ecosystem that represents what you want the world to be.
Mansha Kapur envisions a greener Hopkins. She envisions a community in which sustainable habits have become second nature.
“The campus is a mini-ecosystem that represents what you want the world to be,” says Kapur.
Kapur has served as a Communications Intern with the Office of Sustainability for just over a year. She has created flyers, social media posts, collateral stickers, and logos. She helped generate the documentation for Green Labs Best Practices to bring conscious practices into the lab, designed a Thrifting Guide to promote sustainable consumption, helped finalize Johns Hopkins’ Sustainability Website, and has worked to assess sustainability among leading universities nationwide in order to improve sustainability at Hopkins.
“I’m learning how to work in a professional ecosystem, which is very critical because it helps to enhance my skills and apply them in a much more practical and useful manner,” says Kapur of her internship experience.
Read more about Mansha’s experience here.
Rachel Huang
NEW YORK
Junior majoring in Public Health, minoring in Environmental Studies, Entrepreneurship & Management, Marketing & Communications
Throughout my different positions on campus, I feel that I have been able to impact sustainability through different channels.
Throughout her time with the Office of Sustainability, Rachel Huang has strengthened not only her connection to sustainability at Hopkins but has expanded her connection to the Hopkins community as a whole.
This fall, Huang enters her second year with the Office of Sustainability. As a Communications Intern, Huang manages the Office’s social media accounts. In the spring of 2022, she began to create Instagram reels to better highlight sustainable campus initiatives. She has worked alongside Johns Hopkins’ main Instagram account, as well as the university’s admissions and wellbeing accounts to further promote campus sustainability.
Outside of her internship with the Office, Huang is the head of the Health, Safety, and Sustainability Committee of the Student Government Association and is on the steering committee for the Sustainable Leadership Council. “Throughout my different positions on campus, I feel that I have been able to impact sustainability through different channels,” says Huang.
Read more about Rachel’s experience here.
Skye Neulight
CALIFORNIA
Sophomore majoring in Environmental Studies
It’s a really exciting moment for Hopkins to be getting involved, and I feel like this internship can teach me a lot about the ways to push for institutional change.
Joining the Office of Sustainability for her first semester is Skye Neulight. Neulight hopes to build community around sustainability and climate action through writing and communication.
As a Communications Intern, Neulight will establish a newsletter that will include climate-related news, highlights from blog posts, faculty and student research spotlights, paid and volunteer opportunity postings, student organization details, advice columns, media recommendations, and more.
Neulight is encouraged by the ongoing efforts of the Office of Sustainability and is excited by the current conversations being held among university leaders about institutional change. “It’s a really exciting moment for Hopkins to be getting involved, and I feel like this internship can teach me a lot about the ways to push for institutional change,” says Neulight.
“I am hoping that with efforts like the newsletter,” says Neulight, “we can generate more community discussion and find ways for people to get involved with each other.”
Read more about Skye’s experience here.
Isabelle (Izzy) Nobili
MASSACHUSETTS
Freshman majoring in Environmental Studies and International Studies
I have always felt a sense of responsibility when it comes to responding to anthropogenic environmental changes.
In her first year with the Office of Sustainability, freshman Izzy Nobili looks forward to engaging with sustainable efforts on and off campus. Throughout her time at Hopkins, she hopes to influence positive change in the realm of environmental concern.
Nobili will combine her passions for writing and sustainability as a Communications Intern for the Office. She will highlight individuals, efforts, projects, and news surrounding sustainability for the upcoming 2023 Annual Report. Several highlights will be featured in intermittent blog posts in order to inform the Hopkins community of noteworthy sustainable happenings on and around campus.
“I have always felt a sense of responsibility when it comes to responding to anthropogenic environmental changes,” says Nobili. “I am constantly inspired by the natural world around me, so I feel that it is, in many ways, a duty of mine and ours to repair the damages that have led to its degradation.”
Read more about Izzy’s experience here.