This year AIChE sent Lauren Bartels (Tulane University), Elena Shanin (University of Utah), and Julia Zhuang (Yale University) to Washington for the WISE (Washington Internships for Students in Engineering) program. Each year, the WISE interns research public policy issues and contribute to discussions on how engineers impact society.
As part of the program, interns present their findings at the AIChE Annual Meeting. This year, Jami Summey-Rice (Univ. of Houston and 2015 WISE intern and currently commerical analyst for Shell) sat down with three of the 2017 AIChE interns. The interns discuss their topics, which are:
- Bartels: Turning the Tide: Policies to Advance Seawater Desalination in the United States
- Shanin: Into Hot Water: Utilizing Thermal Distributed Energy Resources to Improve Grid Reliability
- Zhuang: Microgrids for the Macrogrid: Advancing Community Microgrids for Grid Modernization
The interns’ research was published online in the September 2017 edition of the WISE Journal of Engineering and Public Policy, available at www.wise-intern.org/journal.
You can also watch interviews of the 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013 interns.
For more information about the AIChE WISE Award, visit http://www.aiche.org/WISEAward. The deadline for 2017 WISE internship applications is Dec. 31, 2017. For details, visit http://www.wise-intern.org.