Summer 2025 Internship Impacts
Six of our URBAN trainees partnered with local governments, national agencies, non-profits, and the private sector to complete internships this summer. These internships are an opportunity for trainees to lend their expertise to community partners while also gaining valuable professional experience learning how research is translated into meaningful policy and practice.
Learn more below and click the links for a more detailed description of each project!
Government Internships
Climate Resilience Startup Pilot
Flannery worked with the City of Boston’s Office of Emerging Technology on their development of a Climate Technology Lab and developed an internal report of key findings on prospective climate tech startups.
Investigating Trends in Urban Nitrogen Dioxide Pollution Across the US
Rachel used data from the newly-launched TEMPO satellite to understand how pollution is changing in U.S. cities, identifying key statistics and trends for ~50 cities. She identified five cities as potential candidates for an upcoming air quality flight campaign.
Powering Equity: Centering Communities in NYC’s Battery Storage Future
Niouma created a Community Best Practices Guide for energy storage developers. This resource provides clear, equity-centered recommendations for engaging communities, from early outreach and public meeting design to partnerships, workforce opportunities, and benefit-sharing mechanisms.
Non-profit Internships
Extended Producer Responsibility Policies and Procedures Across U.S. States
Shalom examined Extended Producer Responsibility policies intended to reduce plastic pollution at the point of entrance to the environment by promoting a circular economy. She then used this research to write an issue brief outlining the goals and implementation practices of existing Extended Producer Responsibility policies and their expected economic and environmental impacts.
Mapping Trees and Their Public Health Benefits in Boston, MA
Sophia worked with Speak for the Trees on three projects to address the public health impacts of tree inequity. One was to augment a decision-making tool to visualize possible tree planting sites. The second examined the relationship between tree canopy coverage and public health. And in the third, Sophia started analyzing the history of tree inequity by mapping Boston’s canopy coverage in historical aerial photographs.
Private Sector Internships
Improving Carbon Crediting for Reforestation Projects
Luofan partnered with Chloris Geospatial to explore new ways to estimate the carbon accumulation of reforestation projects by combining multiple satellite datasets, and ultimately developed a method that may be used to evaluate reforestation projects and potentially contribute to better global carbon crediting.