Log Lunch with Sam Samuel '26, Zee Taylor '27, and Lana Mahbouba '26: CES Summer Internship Funding

On Friday, October 4, the Log Lunch community gathered to hear from three student speakers — Sam Samuel ’26, Zee Taylor ’27, and Lana Mahbouba 26’ — about their summer research and internships with funding from the Center for Environmental Studies summer grants program. The funding is awarded to around 30-35 students per year, with applications opening in the winter.

Sam, an Environmental Studies and Chinese double major, interned for the Sharon Audubon Center, a wildlife sanctuary of the National Audubon Society, in Sharon, Connecticut. “I chose to work at Sharon Audubon because I love birding and wanted to see both sides of the field of environmentalism,” Sam said. “I got to do both policy and community work, which included conservation.” Sam helped with projects such as creating a community action packet with information on identifying and tracking birds, documenting nesting heights, and banding Purple Martins, a type of sparrow, to track their migrations to South America. She also helped out in the rehabilitation center, feeding injured birds, which she said was her favorite part.

On the policy side, Sam organized a bird walk with State Senator Gary Winfeld, analyzed Connecticut state conservation policy, sat in on a proclamation approval relating to native plants, and discussed environmental justice with Connecticut State Representative Maria Horn.

Zee, a prospective Environmental Studies and Psychology major, interned for the Hoosic River Watershed Association (HooRWA) in Williamstown. HooRWA is a citizen’s group in Williamstown that works on conservation, habitat restoration, and recreation in the Hoosic River. Zee’s responsibilities included regularly testing phosphorous, chloride, E coli, and nitrate levels at various sites on the river, art projects such as creating a booklet and scavenger hunt about the river, and promoting hikes by the river on the organization’s Instagram. “Nonprofits are diverse as far as function and form go,” Zee said. “They can often cover gaps that governments can’t or won’t address.” 

Zee said that one of her biggest takeaways was the importance of nonprofits with regards to providing scientific information to communities, such as the health of the river. Her testing revealed that over the summer, the Hoosic was safe for people to recreate and fish in at all the sites she tested, but it is important to keep monitoring in case this changes. “I am very passionate about science and how people learn about it,” Zee said. “It’s important for me to be able to contribute to communities having this information.” She encouraged other Williams students to get involved with local nonprofits, such as HooWRA and Williamstown Rural Lands.

Lana Mahbouba, a contract major in Environmental Health, worked as an Environmtental Justice and Community Health Researcher/Advocate for the Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) in the town of Northeast Cape on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska, located west of mainland Alaska, 40 miles from Russia. Due to its location, Lana said that St. Lawrence Island has historically been used as the eyes and ears of the U.S. military, which has resulted in 34 contaminated sites that have led to high rates of cancer and birth defects in communities of the Yupik people who live there, which was not seen prior to the 1950s.

The Arctic in general has some of the highest rates of environmental contamination in the world, Lana said, as the waters act as a cold trap for contaminants that come from warmer places. Persistent organic pollutants biomagnify in the bodies of fish and the people who consume them, and they especially concentrate in fat tissue, which is more plentiful in animals that live in cold conditions. Communities in the Arctic are reliant on these animals for nutrition, due to both cultural significance and the high shipping cost of importing food. In her work, Lana collected air, water, and fish samples to test for levels of contaminants, with the goal of holding the U.S. military accountable for the health of the people whose lives have been disrupted by these contaminated sites.

Lana said that her family is from Iraq, where the U.S. military left behind similar hazardous waste sites that have led to similar issues of birth defects in communities there. “Thinking about my own population is hard, I need my activism to be sustainable and to maintain my personality through this work,” Lana, who plans to become a gynecologist and work with native Alaskan populations, said. “This summer, I learned about the importance of forming alliances and working on behalf of one another to reach goals of equity, engaging thoughtfully given our shared story of violence.”

The Log Lunch chefs prepared red bean stew with sweet corn and bell peppers, fried okra with spiced honey mustard, green goddess salad with purple kale, spinach mac and cheese, sweet potato wedges, and apple pie.

 

BY CHARLOTTE STAUDENMAYER ’25