INNOVATIVE INTERNSHIPS

Four recent grads are using their skills to change the world— while undergoing an alchemy all their own—BY KATE LAWLESS

Toward a Green Future

Having graduated this spring from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a major in political science, Jesse Cassuto ’17 has his eyes set on a career in renewable-energy entrepreneurship, helping the carbon-intensive commercial and residential real estate industry transition to more sustainable options. “One of the keys to stopping climate change is to streamline the sector, and make it carbon neutral or negative,” he says.

He continues to make progress on his path, after two recent internships in the political sphere, and one, during his junior year, as a financial analyst at a Barcelona real estate investment firm. Following a stint as a legislative intern for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer as a sophomore, this January he became a national press intern with Schumer’s office. Both political internships gave him valuable experience, everything from attending hearings and analyzing bills to summarizing press coverage and assembling news stories for Schumer to share with his staff.

“My favorite aspect of being a legislative intern was the opportunity to attend hearings on important issues facing this country, as well as to sit in on meetings with the industry leaders committed to making that change,” he says. “The field of politics and policy making is interesting, because it sits at the intersection of so many different industries—nowhere is that more evident than on Capitol Hill.”

In October, he moved closer to his goal, beginning a job as investment relations manager at a health-tech startup called Legrande Health. “I hope the experiences and skills I’m gaining now,” he says, “will help me to make a difference in our environment in the future.”

The Business of Wine

While interning as a chemist at wine producer E. & J. Gallo, Molly Zawacki ’17 has enjoyed going out into the vineyard to pick grapes. Studying them, she says, helps her learn what affects the taste and smell of different wines. “I love the variety of things that I do for my internship,” she says. “There is a great balance of hands-on work and more logical data analysis.”

And what exactly does chemistry have to do with making wine? The process of winemaking is focused on chemical engineering, Zawacki explains. “This includes processes such as distillation, fermentation, and genetic analysis,” she notes, practices and techniques she learned while a chemical engineering major at the University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated in spring 2021.

Zawacki’s primary project while at Gallo’s main campus in Modesto, California, has been analyzing the genetics of different grape varieties. Her six-month internship ends in December. While her love of chemistry remains, she’s discovered new interests while at Gallo—and now plans to pursue an M.B.A.

“I have learned a lot about the corporate world and what drives innovation,” she says. “There are lots of different projects going on at Gallo, and it has been very interesting to see the motivation for these projects. For example, the California fires have been a large problem for winemakers, and I’ve learned how corporate businesses grow and adapt to overcome a challenge such as that. I have also learned that while I love the rudimentary science work, I want to transition into the business side of things to help find a solution to those challenges myself.”

Homeless Helper

Northeastern University junior Maddie Elsea ’19 serves as a case worker for men who face challenges with addiction and housing. She has spent the first six months of this year working full time at the Pine Street Inn in Boston as part of Northeastern’s cooperative education program.

Being homeless and recovering from substance abuse would make life hard at any time. However, the pandemic, Elsea notes, has exacerbated those struggles. Her clients are particularly vulnerable to changes in government programs, which can affect their access to medical care, employment, and housing. And COVID-19 has caused upheaval on a huge scale.

“The pandemic has impacted them intensely, and still does,” she says. Shelters, residential programs, and halfway houses had to cut significantly the number of people they can serve, she adds.

“Our program capacity is typically 50 beds, but since the pandemic it has been 20,” she explains. “So you can imagine the amount of people that are left on the streets, with the emergency housing in Boston being so limited.”

During her years at Williston, Elsea participated actively in the theater department, starring in the 2019 musical Crazy for You, and volunteered with the Community Service Club. Now a double major in social work and theater, her goal is to use both disciplines to help people through drama therapy, a branch of mental health work similar to art therapy or music therapy.

This internship has convinced her that she’s on the right career path. “Each of the men that I work with are deserving of compassion, respect, and support, and my job at its core is really just to show them that,” she says.

Organizing for Better Public Health

Parker “Bina” Sweet ’17 always wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, but a service learning trip to the Dominican Republic after his first year in college changed his mind. His host, herself a doctor and professor of medicine, convinced him that in order to effect change, health care leaders need to practice not on the patient, but on the systems in which they operate. “When we solve public health problems,” he says, “we are elevating the very ground on which people stand. It’s all about access.”

Sweet, who was named one of “29 Who Shine” by the Massachusetts Department of Education this spring, is taking that advice to heart. While working toward a five-year bachelor’s-plus-master’s degree in health policy and management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he helped create the Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps, which coordinates teams of doctoral, masters-in-publichealth, and undergraduate students throughout the commonwealth to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing and other public health work. He also worked on the contact-tracing efforts of nonprofit global health organization Partners in Health during the height of the pandemic, centralizing the efforts of town boards of health. Taking all he’s learned in the field of contact tracing and applying it to leadership training, he is teaching an interdisciplinary skills-based seminar to public health students this fall.

Being busy and juggling many responsibilities are habits he cultivated at Williston. As a fully engaged student—he captained the cross-country and wrestling teams while taking a slate of challenging classes here—he internalized the school’s emphasis on a growth mindset, an approach he still embraces. Williston, he says, “gave me the inner strength to be confident in exploration.”