DURHAM, N.C. – The Nicholas School of the Environment has awarded funding to nine Master of Environmental Management (MEM) students to support their international internships this summer.

The students each received between $1,000 and $4,000 from the school’s International Internship Funds program to help defray the costs of their summer projects.

Funds are awarded annually on a competitive basis.

“This was an exceptionally impressive year. Students submitted a solid group of projects,” says Erika Weinthal, associate dean for international programs.

This year’s recipients are:

* Hannah Girardeau (MEM – Energy and Environment), who will conduct an internship on building clean energy markets in Nepal with the NGO Empower Generation;

* Nina Hamilton (MEM – Ecosystem Science and Conservation), who will conduct an internship on participatory mapping to promote community engagement and reduce commercial bushmeat hunting in Gabon;

* Alexis Kovach (MEM – Ecosystem Science and Conservation), who will conduct an internship on the effects of different land-use activities on rural livelihoods in the Ivindo-Minkébé region of Gabon;

* Emily Mills (MEM – Ecosystem Science and Conservation), who will conduct an internship on modeling forest elephant habitat selection to identify movement corridors for conservation priority in Gabon;

* Tian Qiao (MEM – Energy and Environment), who will conduct an internship with the Environmental Defense Climate Corps and IKEA China;

* Caitlin Starks (MEM – Coastal Environmental Management), who will conduct an internship on developing baselines for the evaluation of community-based environmental management of clam and pen shell fisheries in Bahia de Kino and Puerto Libertad, Mexico;

* Nathan Walker (MEM – Ecosystem Science and Conservation), who will conduct an internship on the conservation of movement corridors for the critically endangered San Martin titi monkey with the NGO Proyecto Mono Tocón in Peru;

* Rachel Whitson (MEM – Ecotoxicology and Environmental Health), who will conduct an internship on the impact of El Niño on environmental mercury pollution and its effects on human health in Peru; and

* Maria Delfina Cuglievan Wiese (MEM – Global Environmental Change) who will conduct an internship on global environmental policy and governance as the Nicholas School Environment Fellow at the Geneva Program in Switzerland, where she will work on the United National Environment Programme’s Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management project..

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