Tag Archives: intern

Alumni, Alumni Spotlight

Alumnus James Murray (F’11) Returns to the Cape as an Intern

“Just over three years ago I was rumbling along in a van on my way from Rock Sound to The Island School, clutching my backpack tightly and wondering what I had gotten myself into. I had no idea that the next three and a half months would be the most challenging, rewarding and enlightening time of my life.

I attended The Island School as a student in the fall of my junior year in 2011 and I’m lucky to be back this spring as an intern with the Sea Turtle Research and Conservation team. It’s truly amazing to be back at a place that had such an impact on my education and overall growth as an individual. No matter where I walk on campus I’m flooded with memorable experiences, lessons I learned, and friends I made while at The Island School. The reason my Island School experience was so memorable is the same reason I found myself applying to be an intern for this spring. The unique nature of this place fosters an exceptional learning and professional environment that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the world. Not to mention the ability to learn and experience rich Bahamian culture through the organization’s efforts to connect with the greater community. It was especially cool to arrive on campus and see how the organization has already grown over the past few years to include Hallig House, CSD, and the new intern housing under construction. I’m excited to see what the next several months will bring.” -James Murray

Alumni, CEI

Summer Intern Blog: Shark Intern, Chris Daniell (F’10) & Boathouse Intern, H. Hoell

Chris Daniell

Hello! My name is Chris Daniell, Shark Intern and IS alum, and thank you for reading my blog post!

Being a student at the Island School was the most amazing experience of my life. I was here in the fall of 2010, and I spent the majority of 2011 trying to return. And here I am, living on Eleuthera, and living the dream.

The three months I spent as an Island School student were the best of my life. I loved every aspect of life here, from the more environmentally conscious nature of life, learning new things and meeting new people, and exploring the island of Eleuthera. However, my favorite part of The Island School experience was the connection to the ocean. My life has been dominated by a love for two things: science and the creatures that inhabit the world’s oceans. The Island School gave me my first hands-on experience with marine science, and gave me the opportunity to work with marine biologists. I was placed Continue reading →

CEI

Summer Systems Intern Blog: Stephan Grabner

As a Systems Intern at CEI this summer, I will work with Matt Poss, Sam Kenworthy and other members of the facilities team for the next two months. Although my main project this summer will be CEI’s biodiesel production, I will also help out with other projects that need an extra pair of hands.

At the moment we produce working fuel but don’t really know what quality it is. It’s easy to make biodiesel that seems to work well but has contaminants in it which relatively quickly destroy engines, are hazardous to the brewer and user, and which can actually be worse for the environment than petrodiesel. So having a clue about the quality of one’s product, as well as its various byproducts, is quite important! There are a lot of tests to which commercial biodiesel producers have to submit their product, but they generally require extremely costly equipment or highly trained analytical chemists, and- at least at the moment-  cannot be carried out here on Eleuthera. Over the next few weeks I will therefore research different tests we can reasonably do for every batch of diesel we produce and begin to use these tests on our feedstock oil and the diesel we make. This will allow us to ensure that our vehicles run smoothly and give us an idea of how the quality of our biodiesel varies from batch to batch, which in turn will allow us to improve our production process. So far I have worked only briefly with Marco Continue reading →

CEI

Summer Aquaculture Intern Blog: Drew Villeneuve

Hey Everybody! My name is Drew and I am an Aquaculture intern at CEI this summer. I’m from Maryland and just graduated from high school in DC; I will be attending Bowdoin College in Maine this fall where I hope to study Biology and English. In the past I have volunteered/interned at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and National Zoo. My specific interest is in Invertebrates, so it’s a change of pace for me to be working with fish! At the museum I worked primarily with deep water invertebrates that were pulled from Lophelia reefs in the Gulf of Mexico collected before and after the oil spill in 2010, all in hopeful preparation for some comparative analyses, and I worked at the Zoo in the Invertebrate exhibit maintaining some of their tanks. In my spare time I like to work on my marine aquarium, whitewater kayak on the Potomac, read, and explore the Appalachian mountains.

If you are not already aware, the aquaculture team (Marie, Tyler, and I) with the help of a lot of other awesome CEI people transferred our cobia to the offshore cage. For the past week or so we have been making daily dives on the cage to feed the cobia Continue reading →

Alumni, Cape Eleuthera Institute, CEI

CEI Welcomes its Summer Interns, Including Six IS Alumni

This week, 16 summer interns arrived on Eleuthera to work at Cape Eleuthera Institute. Of those 16, we were excited to welcome back 6 Island School alumni who spent a semester, summer term, or divemaster course here on the Cape over the last 6 years. Mackey Violich (F’06), Elizabeth Douglas (S’08), Jasmine Wilchcombe (F’08), Grace Dennis (Su’10), Chris Daniell (F’10) and Jake Verter (S’09) will be here supporting the Shark and Aquaponics programs for the next two months! We’re glad to have you back!
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Cape Eleuthera Institute

Introducing CEI Research Assistants Jason Selwyn and Mike Piersiak!

My name is Jason and last semester I came to CEI as an intern with the Lionfish program. While working here I got to work on things ranging from catching deepwater sharks to installing new netting on the aquaculture cage to performing monthly surveys looking at the impact of lionfish on reef fish populations. I also got the chance to act as a teaching assistant for the lionfish research class at The Island School and teach students the scientific method and how to investigate ecological questions.

After my internship I decided to take the opportunity to come back to CEI as a research assistant. I still do some of the same things (data collection in the field), but I also gained many new responsibilities. I moved from a teaching assistant to a full-blown co-teacher for the lionfish research class. I am also conducting an independent project on the topic of my choosing to investigate something about the marine world that surrounds us here at CEI.

My name is Mike Piersiak and I came to CEI last semester as an intern with the Shark Research and Conservation Program. My main focus was to gain as much knowledge as I could regarding not only my specific area of interest (sharks), but also knowledge about the other research projects taking place here. Continue reading →

Cape Eleuthera Institute

Interning at Cape Eleuthera Institute

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We are interning in Flats Ecology research at the Cape Eleuthera Institute and learning so much about the effects of global climate change on many flats species such as, Queen and Milk conch, Checkered pufferfish, Blue crabs, Lobster, Schoolmaster snapper, and soon to come Cobia and Bonefish. We are often in the field perfecting our methods of capture and we assist in designing and constructing experiments to run tests on these various species. For example, we are testing the metabolic rates of most of these marine organisms in a respirometer. Working in the wet lab we’re exposed to the other research projects that are also going on with Aquaponics, Aquaculture, and Shark research. With Flats research, everyday is a new challenge providing the best experiential learning environment.

-Lauren and Tori

Editors Note: Interested in interning at Cape Eleuthera Institute?  Applications are accepted year round for internships in the following fields: open ocean aquaculture, aquaponics, permaculture, and outdoor education.  To find out more information or to submit an application, click here.