This summer, 20 UChicago students will pursue prestigious climate internships with support from the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth. The Institute’s three internship programs each support a unique category of summer opportunities.
- The Climate and Growth Fund provides stipends to students who have independently secured external, unpaid positions.
- The Climate and Growth Internship Program partners with leading climate-related organizations to provide UChicago-exclusive summer internship positions.
- A collaboration with the Institute of Politics, the Polsky Policy Fellowship Program partners with leading organizations in climate, energy or environmental policy to provide UChicago-exclusive summer internship positions.
Our largest-ever intern cohort includes undergraduates from all four class years, as well as graduate students from the Harris School of Public Policy. Their prestigious summer positions include six non-profits, four companies, three governmental organizations, two international bodies, and a university.
Interns will form new connections at offices in Washington, D.C.; Providence, Rhode Island; and San Francisco, California. Each will gain new insights to bring back to campus and valuable skills for their future careers.
Read more about our 2026 summer interns below.
Climate and Growth Internship Program
Ell Admaja
ReNew Energy
Ell Admaja (College ’29) is a rising sophomore in the College, planning on double majoring in economics with a specialization in data science and statistics. This summer, he will join ReNew, one of India’s leading decarbonization solution companies, as a Data Engineering Intern. He will work with ReNew Digital on data engineering, pipeline development, ETL automation, and data infrastructure for real-world energy analytics.
Laura Bornhoevd
R&D B2B Marketing
Laura Bornhoevd (College ’28) is a rising third-year undergraduate from the Bay Area, California, planning to double major in business economics and climate and sustainable growth, with a specialization in politics, economics, and society. She has previously participated in the Institute’s India Summer Fellows Program and COP30 delegation. This summer, she will be interning with R&D B2B Marketing, a climate tech advertising firm, as an energy marketing and communications intern.
Danielle Duble
ReNew Energy
Danielle Duble (College ’28) is an undergraduate in the College, double majoring in environment, geography, & urbanization and climate and sustainable growth. This summer, she will be interning with ReNew Private Limited in India through the Global Green Scholars Program. As an ESG & Sustainability intern, she will support ESG and integrated reporting, GHG inventorisation, and digital ESG data management.
Avi Duggirala
GreenFire Energy
Avi Duggirala (College ’28) is an economics and data science student with interests in energy markets, climate finance, and sustainable infrastructure investment. This summer, he will be joining GreenFire Energy, a geothermal energy technology developer, where he will support financial modeling, market analysis, and strategic research related to advanced geothermal energy projects. His work will focus on evaluating project economics, analyzing energy market dynamics, and helping assess the commercial viability of emerging geothermal technologies
Dan Gunlogson
GreenFire Energy
Dan Gunlogson (College ’28) is a second-year student studying economics and psychology. This summer, he will be working as an Investments and Corporate Development Intern for GreenFire Energy, a geothermal energy technology developer. He will be working on a variety of projects, including closing out the Series B fundraising efforts and conducting various market and industry research projects.
Climate and Growth Fund
Iris Badezet-Delory
Brown University, Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences
Iris Badezet-Delory (College ’27) is an undergraduate from France majoring in physics and classics with research interests in computational physics and their applications to climate research and sustainable transportation. This summer, she will be conducting research at Brown University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences with Professor Emanuele Di Lorenzo in Providence, Rhode Island. This project builds on her previous findings, focusing on developing a forecast model for winter California precipitation based on advanced statistical frameworks or machine learning approaches.
Iram Siddique
Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Iram Siddique (Harris ’27) is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Harris School of Public Policy, focusing on the intersection of environment, climate change, and international development. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Siddique spent 12 years as a journalist, building a career centered on governance, climate resilience, and socio-political change across urban and rural India. This summer, Siddique will be interning with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the world’s largest publicly-funded agrifood research network.
Gabriel Thomas
Earth Biometrics
Gabriel Thomas (College ’28) is an undergraduate student studying economics and environmental science. This summer, he will join Earth Biometrics as a researcher stationed at the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve. In this role, Thomas will contribute to a high-impact trial program conducted in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Caltech, and the Enterprise Neurosystem consortium to deploy a global AI sensor network for climate change monitoring. His responsibilities include the assembly and maintenance of field hardware, the troubleshooting of network systems connecting edge sensors to data infrastructure, and the management of critical environmental data.
Will Vanman
Brightline Defense
Will Vanman (College ’28) is an undergraduate student majoring in environment, geography, and urbanization (CEGU) and public policy. This summer, he will be interning with Brightline Defense, an organization that advances environmental justice by ensuring that underserved and frontline communities both benefit from and shape sustainable development. He will research city and state policies to better understand how environmental justice communities interact with government systems. He will also support policy analysis and communications efforts.
Liz Villegas
The World Bank
Liz Villegas (Haris ’27) is an economist and Master of Public Policy candidate at the Harris School of Public Policy. Previously, she was a Senior Economist at the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR), where she led macroeconomic monitoring, sovereign risk analysis, and the development of policy frameworks for member countries. This summer, Villegas will be interning with the World Bank in Washington D.C., supporting analysis on industrial policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Polsky Policy Fellowship Program
Kacey Archer
Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE)
Kacey Archer (College ’28) is a rising third-year student in the College, studying economics and public policy studies. Previously, she worked on archival research into the history of transportation and infrastructure in Chicago through her internship at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. This summer, she will be working as a transportation policy intern for SAFE’s Coalition for Reimagined Mobility, supporting research on robotics, digital transportation infrastructure, and supply chain dependency.
Sadie Darbro
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Sadie Darbro (College ’26) is a fourth year majoring in global studies and minoring in geographic information science. She’s spent her previous summers traveling in China learning about energy innovation, supporting research on political life in the Philippines, and furthering flood management campaigns in Chicago. This summer, she’ll be interning with the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as a Polsky Policy Fellow.
Kai Foster
Atlas Public Policy
Kai Foster (College ’28) is a rising third year at the college studying public policy and environment, geography and urbanization. Foster is interested in sustainable energy and transportation policy, where he has previously done work with Nutter Consulting. This summer, he’ll be working as a summer fellow with Atlas Public Policy where he hopes to gain experience integrating data with climate policy research.
Sophia Liu
Illinois Department of Transportation
Sophia Liu (College ’28) is a rising third-year undergraduate majoring in public policy and economics. This summer, she will work with the Illinois Department of Transportation to support IDOT’s emerging sustainability initiatives in climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and community resilience.
Eric Parrilla
Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development
Eric Parrilla (College ’27) is a rising fourth-year student majoring in economics and public policy studies with an interest in applying data analytics to policy design and implementation. This summer, he will be working with the Office of Energy and Business Utility at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development to develop performance metrics for grant programs that support renewable energy adoption and help communities address the impacts of pollution. Through his work advancing performance management for programs that contribute to Illinois’s clean energy transition, he hopes to strengthen his skills in data management and program evaluation while gaining domain knowledge that he can apply in future roles with think tanks or non-profits working to advance sustainability and clean energy policies.
Rudra Patel
The Nature Conservancy
Rudra Patel (College ’27) is an undergraduate majoring in economics and data science with a minor in chemistry. On campus, he is an active member of the Phoenix Sustainability Initiative, where he works with a team to promote sustainable practices, and the Environmental Research Group, with whom he co-authored a paper on optimal transport in Chicago. He also has a strong personal interest in animal conservation and recently completed an internship with the Illinois Environmental Council, where he assessed the impact of conservation legislation in the Chicago area. This summer, Patel will be interning with The Nature Conservancy in Chicago, IL.
Henry Winston
Sierra Club
Henry Winston (College ’27) is a rising fourth-year undergraduate majoring in political science and environment, geography, and urbanization (CEGU). He is currently pursuing an undergraduate BA thesis exploring the potential for collective organizing bodies to support urban agriculture in Chicago. Winston will be interning with Sierra Club Illinois this summer in a role primarily supporting their community engagement and organizing efforts.
Caroline Workman
Centre for Youth Policy
Caroline Workman (College ’26) is a fourth-year environmental science major and environment, geography, and urbanization minor. She will begin her Master of Public Policy this fall at Harris. She has previously worked with Grove Climate Group, where she conducted policy analysis and drafted memos on federal and state energy legislation, as well as with Gary R. Weber & Associates and the Southeast Environmental Taskforce, where she developed regulatory guidance materials and engaged directly with community stakeholders on renewable energy issues. This summer, Caroline will serve as a Climate Policy & Legislative Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Policy, supporting young parliamentarians and elected officials working on climate and sustainable growth challenges.
Gabrielle Yurin
U.S. House of Representatives Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition (SEEC)
Gabrielle Yurin (College ’27) is a third-year undergraduate studying history and political science, with a focus on international law, public policy, and human rights. She has previously worked with Lawyers Without Borders on research related to international due diligence in global supply chains as well as at a Miami-based law firm, where she gained experience in legal research and client advocacy. On campus, she is an oral advocate on the Moot Court team and the recent national champion of the Hamilton Lugar International Law Moot Court Tournament. As an intern at SEEC, Yurin is excited to continue exploring how legal frameworks can drive more sustainable and equitable policy outcomes.
Lyvia Zhou
Lyvia ZhouCoalition for Green Capital
Lyvia Zhou (College ’27) is a third year majoring in computational and applied Mathematics. This summer, she will work with Coalition for Green Capital in risk management and portfolio analytics to support the funding of national green investments.