Joan Smedinghoff

Work Experience

 

Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring

October 2011-May 2014, August 2014-May 2015

 

The Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) is an organization that works with community groups throughout Pennsylvania and southern New York who want to monitor their streams. ALLARM helps them develop a protocol, teaches them how to test their water, and provides technical assistance after groups have begun monitoring. At ALLARM, I have participated in many of the workshops where we teach people how to monitor their streams by giving educational presentations and leading them in hands-on activities. Outside of these workshop days, I design and edit ALLARM's annual newsletter, Stream of Consciousness, update ALLARM's social media pages, and make outreach materials such as brochues and posters. My work at ALLARM has taught me the importance of clear, concise scientific communication, as well as the power that regular citizens can have, both in environmental protection and scientific data gathering.

 

Baird Sustainability Fellow

January-May 2015

 

The Baird Sustainability Fellowship recognizes graduating seniors who have advanced sustainability goals on or beyond the Dickinson campus through excellence in scholarship, leadership and service. In a semester-long colloquium, I and eleven other fellows covered topics of sustainability, professional development, grant writing, and meeting facilitation. I also worked with 2 others to create and deliver a lesson on climate change and sustainable development.

 

German Department Research Assistant

July-October 2014

 

Over the summer I researched a variety of topics related to sustainability in Germany for first year seminar entitled “Sustainability in German Culture." Furing the fall semester, I worked with the Overseas Student Assistant from the University of Bremen to create and give a presentation in the seminar comparing German and American approaches to sustainability in daily life. I then led a discussion with the students about the presentation, drawing comparisons to Dickinson College.

 

Intern, U.S. State Department, Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change

June-August 2013

 

As an intern at the State Department, I researched international adaptation finance. I learned about the many different climate funds, the various rules and regulations for each of them, and the tension between developed and developing countries regarding project financing. Developing countries see money for adaptation projects as just that and entirely separate from development aid money, and therefore want more money for separate development projects, whereas developed contries see them as one and the same.