Community colleges play a key role in training and supporting our future workforce. Learn more about our flagship program during April, Community College Month.
April 26, 2021
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April is Community College Month. We’re jumping in to celebrate by sharing our STEM workforce development and education outreach opportunities. These programs target students from the more than 1,000 public and private community colleges across the United States. (And did you know that Dr. Jill Biden is a community college teacher alongside her role as First Lady of the United States?)
Community colleges educate a diverse student population across age, family educational attainment, race, and area of study, reflecting the nation as a whole. They often reach students who are unable to access traditional, four-year degree programs. According to the U.S. Census, more than 30 percent of college students are undergraduates at two-year colleges. More than half of students in community colleges attend part-time as they develop workforce skills and earn associate degrees, certificates, or baccalaureate degrees. Students at community colleges are able to obtain a high-quality education that’s affordable and can launch them straight into careers or other four-year degree programs.
America is poised to make a major investment in community college infrastructure. The American Jobs Plan proposes spending $12 billion for facilities and technologies as well as identifying strategies to address access to community colleges in education deserts.
Internships Program
The DOE’s flagship program is our Community College Internships (CCI) program through the Office of Science. It’s a competitive 10-week paid internship for community college students. Students can work at one of 16 participating DOE national laboratories under the supervision of lab technicians or researchers. They work on technologies, instrumentation projects, or major research facilities in support of DOE’s mission. Host laboratories also offer additional professional development opportunities, including workshops, laboratory tours, and scientific lectures. Internships are offered in the spring, summer, and fall.
Applications for the Fall 2021 term of this program are due on May 27, 2021.
The experiences of CCI participants mirror the diverse research done at our national laboratories. At Argonne National Laboratory in 2018, Brenda Escobedo developed a device that mimicked a piece of the Gammasphere Accelerator. Engineers at Argonne were in the process of upgrading the detector and used Escobedo’s device to test the upgrade.
Mwesi Musisi-Nkambwe interned at Brookhaven National Laboratory through both the Community College Internships program (2003) and the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships program (2004). During his internships, he improved the interface in the control room of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (an Office of Science user facility) that technicians use to manage the equipment.
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2016, Nabeel Jaser worked to improve the efficiency of the beamline of one of the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world. With his mentor, he constructed a tool that scientists could use to change out samples more quickly.
Community colleges provide opportunities for millions of Americans from all walks of life and while the American Jobs Plan is paving the way for even more Americans to benefit, the DOE’s internship program is just one of many ways it supports STEM workforce development and education. For more resources for college and graduate students in STEM from the U.S. Department of Energy, visit STEM Rising.
Shannon Brescher Shea
Shannon Brescher Shea ([email protected]) is the social media manager and senior writer/editor in the Office of Science’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs. She writes and curates content for the Office of Science’s Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well as contributes to the Department of Energy’s overall social media accounts. In addition, she writes and edits feature stories covering the Office of Science’s discovery research and manages the Science Public Outreach Community (SPOC). Previously, she was a communications specialist in the Vehicle Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. She began at the Energy Department in 2008 as a Presidential Management Fellow. In her free time, she enjoys bicycling, gardening, writing, volunteering, and parenting two awesome kids.
AnneMarie Horowitz
AnneMarie Horowitz is the Chief of Staff for the Arctic Energy Office. She joined the Arctic Energy Office in May 2023, and previously served as the Acting Communications Director until September 2023. AnneMarie has been with the Energy Department since 2010, and was previously on the digital team of the Office of Public Affairs, where she managed digital projects and internal employee communications efforts. AnneMarie was the Digital Communications Manager from March 2023 - September 2023 for the Department of Health and Human Affairs' Public Education Campaign, We Can Do This, to share information about the COVID vaccine.
AnneMarie founded two active employee resource groups at the Department of Energy: POWER (Professional Opportunities for Women in Energy Realized) and the Emerging Professionals Group. From 2015 - 2017 she served as the Special Advisor on workforce issues for Deputy Secretary of Energy Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. She has also previously worked in the Under Secretary for Management and Performance and the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity.
AnneMarie created the STEM Rising: Women @ Energy series, featuring profiles of women from the agency who work in STEM careers. She was critical to establishing the Equality in Energy Transitions Initiative, a dual-hatted effort of the International Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Ministerial to advance the transition to a clean energy economy by engaging more women in clean energy, and is involved with the U.S. C3E Initiative as an award reviewer and communication. During the Obama Administration she was a DOE designee to the White House Council on Women and Girls. AnneMarie was a U.S. delegate to the APEC Women in the Economy Forum in 2014 in Beijing, China.
AnneMarie has a BA in Political Science from the University of Portland and a Masters of Government from Johns Hopkins University. She resides in Philadelphia.