Post date: Jul 12, 2012 12:41:22 AM
I am an intern for Professor Thomas Hayden and am helping edit sections new additions to the Stanford magazine section SAGE, which is a community advice column about sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. With previous entries written for the blog, there was a bit of backlash about one student’s claims that genetically modified crops often harm the environment. A man from the Hoover Institution wrote a response to the SAGE posting on Forbes.com and blasted the claims she made about GMOs and the environmental impact of soy farming.
My job with that was to go through both of their arguments to find their points of contestion and do my own research to come up with my own conclusion. Now I am spending time fact checking other articles before they are released so that the same thing does not happen again.
My advisor is also having me write my own Opinions piece about Environmental Justice and I am writing about the unintentional exclusion of the movement as well as ways that have worked to spread the movement to people besides the upper middle class.
I am really enjoying the work I’m doing at Stanford and am fortunate that Professor Hayden is so flexible about my working schedule and hours. I am learning about an area that I might want to pursue seriously as a career and am very happy to have this opportunity.