Spring Intern Spotlight: Katherine Cox

Hi, I’m Katherine Cox. I was one of the Arctic Energy Office’s interns this past season. I am a geology undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) and participated in this internship in partnership with the UMD Fellows program.  

I was initially drawn to this program through their ability to provide opportunities that could grant me real-world experience in the workplace and decided to apply to intern with the Arctic Energy Office (AE) because I was interested in their mission of improving energy infrastructure and clean energy in Alaska. I have always maintained an interest in the polar regions of the planet and while at the time I was not entirely certain what direction I wanted to take with my career I knew that I wanted to do something where I could make a real positive impact on the world, so I found the mission and work of the AE to be something that I was both incredibly interested in professionally and an incredibly worthwhile organization to work with. 

Over the past few months, I have had a great experience with the AE office that has really expanded my understanding of Arctic and energy issues, as well as my knowledge of the function of the Department of Energy at a national level. Even though my position was entirely virtual, I was fortunate enough to be invited to spend a day with the rest of the AE team at the DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. this past January during their work retreat. Going in I was incredibly nervous as this was my first professional work experience, but being able to sit in on and observe AE meetings and meet everyone in person on this day was such an amazing experience and really let me feel comfortable with the team and the work of the office and set the tone for the rest of my time with them. 

Since then, I have been involved on multiple projects in the office having the opportunity to work on the DOE’s Northern Lights blog series by interviewing nominees and drafting posts, the Minute with Mike audio series, Fun Fact Fridays on the Arctic Energy Office's social media channels, and a “Fact or Fiction” game for Earth Day (play it here!) 

Working on these projects and speaking with so many incredible people across the department and all of DOE has been one of the most rewarding parts of my time here, and I feel like I have learned so much! My engagement with Arctic issues has greatly increased my awareness of the importance of Alaska as a critical region for both the clean energy revolution and climate change and has made me want to continue to work on climate issues and geologic hazards in the future.

I recently presented my experiences during my AE internship along- side my fellow intern, Valerie Gorden, and my supervisor, the AE’s own Chief of Staff AnneMarie Horowitz, at the UMD Fellows annual end-of-year Academic Showcase. This was a cool event and, in my opinion, the perfect way to start to bring my internship to a close. My time with AE will always be something I remember and consider extremely valuable, so my thanks go out to Chief of Staff, AnneMarie Horowitz, and the Director of the Arctic Energy Office, Dr. Erin Whitney, as well as the rest of the AE and UMD Fellows staff for making this possible – I couldn’t have done any of it without you all!