The College Internship in Suburban Ecology Program (CISE) offers summer internships to college students and recent graduates who are interested in learning about the unique challenges facing urban/suburban natural resource managers. Through a variety of research and land management projects, interns are trained in the skills needed to pursue a successful career in the environmental sciences.
Sarah Pieratti, from South Salem, is a rising senior at Wheaton College where she is an environmental science major.
MRG has a large network of relatively pristine and diverse vernal pools, along with various kinds of wetlands, floodplains, and near-permanent pools. Sarah worked on re-mapping the vernal pools, properly characterizing them by type, and building a digital structure to include an updated species (mainly amphibians) list for each.
Tegh Khosla, from Scarsdale, is a rising senior at Colby College where he is studying biology and East Asian studies.
Tegh studied photos of deer taken with our trail cameras and, using spatial analysis, helped measure deer density in Mianus River Gorge Preserve.
Megumi Imaicumi, from Ossining, is a recent graduate from SUNY Stony Brook where she majored in biology, specializing in ecology and evolution.
Megumi also focused on MRG’s deer management program (DMP), keeping track of the number of deer in the Preserve.
Emily Cao, from Scarsdale, is a rising sophomore at Wellesley College where she is majoring in environmental studies with a concentration in ecology and environmental economics.
Emily helped Director of Research & Education Chris Nagy work on a grant from the Town of Bedford to map potential wildlife corridors in and around Bedford.
They all helped with the ongoing work of invasive species management, trail maintenance, building deer exclosures, and several other projects.
Once again, the interns were chosen from yet another impressive group of students who applied through a competitive application process. We enjoyed having the interns here over the summer and are confident they learned a lot from their MRG mentors.
Thank you to Rusticus Garden Club, the Goodnow Fund, and other generous supporters of Mianus River Gorge’s award-winning Research & Education Program.
