SciCom graduates embark on national summer internships

June 15, 2012

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Amy West, shown on the MBARI research vessel Point Lobos, will create science videos for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco during her summer 2012 internship. Photo: D.J. Osborne/MBARI
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Helen Shen will work at the Boston Globe in summer 2012 as a Kaiser Family Foundation health reporting intern. Photo: Michael Malone/San Jose Mercury News

The latest graduating class from UCSC's Science Communication Program has landed a set of summer internships spanning the country, from prominent magazines to research agencies.

Ten students finished their coursework in June as members of the 31st cohort of Santa Cruz–trained science writers. The summer internships are the final required element to complete their graduate certificates.

This year's group includes three students selected for the prestigious Kaiser Family Foundation health reporting internships at daily newspapers. Four graduates will work at other large newspapers, magazines, or websites, and three will intern for the news operations at major scientific institutions.

Some graduates will complete a second or third internship prior to competing for jobs or embarking on freelance careers.

The SciCom class of 2012 and their placements are:

Marissa Fessenden: Scientific American, New York, through December

Daniela Hernandez: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (Kaiser Foundation); fall job at WIRED, San Francisco

Sarah Jane Keller: Los Alamos National Laboratory news office, New Mexico; fall internship at Conservation, Seattle

Tanya Lewis: Wired.com, San Francisco; fall internship at Science News, Washington, D.C.

Erin Loury: Los Angeles Times (Kaiser Foundation)

Beth Marie Mole: Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.; fall internship at The Scientist; winter-spring internship at Nature, Washington, D.C.

Meghan Rosen: Science News, Washington, D.C.; one-year internship at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland

Helen Shen: Boston Globe (Kaiser Foundation); fall internship at Nature, Washington, D.C.

Stephen Tung: U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute news office, Walnut Creek, California; fall internship at the San Francisco Exploratorium

Amy West: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, video production, San Francisco

Each student also completed three part-time internships during the school year at newspapers, radio stations, university news offices, news websites, and other agencies. These positions, arranged through the SciCom program, help each student assemble a diverse portfolio of professionally edited clips for review by national recruiters.

The early-career pathways of other recent SciCom graduates are listed on this page.