My name is Maeve Hitchcock and I am a rising Senior at Brandeis University, majoring in environmental studies and minoring in both Business and Climate Justice, Science, and Policy. I especially love learning about environmental history – something this watershed is most definitely full of!
This is my second summer as an intern here at IRWA and I am so happy to be back! Last year I was the Data-Driven Impact Intern intern and worked primarily with education program director Emma Hughen to investigate water usage in the region, research into the Miles River (the Ipswich River’s largest tributary) and helped out with some of the education events.
This year as the PIE-Rivers Coalition Climate Resilience Intern I am working primarily with Molly Courson, the Resiliency Program Director to support the work she is doing within the Miles River Subwatershed. Right now I am working on research into water billing in the region and cataloguing the total efforts that PIE-Rivers Partners have achieved in the region over the past decade.
As part of the ongoing work in Miles River Subwatershed, we also want to create some opportunities for people to engage with and learn more about this fabulous tributary. To do this we are gearing up to launch the Miles River Scavenger Hunt! I had a lot of fun creating this and I hope you will have just as much fun exploring it (and even winning some IRWA swag along the way)!
In addition to the individual projects we are each working on, a typical day as an IRWA intern can mean a whole bunch of things, so here’s a snapshot into some of the other things we’ve been getting up to recently and what we love about working here!
We’ve been collaborating and networking with other college interns from organizations all over the region. Over the past couple weeks, we had the opportunity to meet a bunch of other young professionals from MassAudubon, the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, and the Plum Island LTER site. With the help of Advocacy Program Manager Zach Calderón, myself and the other IRWA interns took them out on the river for a paddle – all while learning about the work and research that they are doing this summer. A couple of days later we spent the day with the Pepperweed Technicians from MassAudubon pulling invasive pepperweed in Ipswich out at Marshview Farm.
It’s also been a busy couple of weeks in terms of special events around here!
At the second annual RiverFest, we got to connect with folks in the upper watershed and do some public outreach and engagement. It was really great to see how the whole staff works together to pull off such a massive event!
At the recent River Stewards Party we had the really amazing opportunity to get to meet some of the lovely board members and donors who help make this all possible. Connecting with them and learning about their different careers and how they came to be involved with IRWA was really inspiring and I was super appreciative of the time they all took to speak with us.
I’m excited to spend the rest of the summer with IRWA and am especially looking forward to our upcoming intern trip to the Massachusetts State House to learn more about what we can each do to advocate for local environmental policy!
See you on the river!
Maeve