Celebrating a Growing Success: The Muskie Resiliency Interns
In the Summer of 2024, the Muskie School launched a new internship program. This program engages master’s students from Public Policy and Planning (MPPM) Program in real-world, applied community sustainability and resilience-focused projects at host sites across Maine. Inspired by the need in Maine’s communities to have access to support for resiliency-building work, MPPM faculty lecturer Dr. Brenda Zollitsch developed and now coordinates the specialized internship program. The goal of this targeted internship program is to help MPPM graduate interns develop adaptive management skills while also supporting resilience building in Maine communities.
To be a Muskie Resilience Intern, students must be enrolled in the Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM) Program, have taken specific courses (PPM 630 Leading Resilience in Times of Change and/or PPM 612 Sustainable Communities), and commit at least ten hours per week to working with their host site. Internships may take place onsite at the host organization’s location, as a remote arrangement of a combination (hybrid), depending on the needs of both parties.
Host sites frequently report that students bring new insights and skills to the problems they help address as well as additional capacity, an abundance of energy, and a deep commitment to public service. Through their internship experiences, MPPM students often engage in activities such as strategic planning, policy and data analysis, research projects, policy communication, community planning, and stakeholder engagement.
The success of the internship program is in large part owed to its four-way partnership:
The Muskie School’s MPPM Program provides the foundational learning upon which students build their skills. Named after public service champion Senator Edmund S. Muskie, the Muskie Resiliency Interns are recognized as coming from a strong academic program with a long history of connecting education with applied public service. Students can earn 3.0 academic credits for their 10 hour/week semester- or summer-long resiliency-focused internship.
Host sites across Maine provide MPPM students with community-based learning opportunities. Host sites take many forms, ranging from nonprofits and municipal offices to government agencies and businesses. They engage students in real-world projects that help students build and practice sustainability and resilience-building skills. These often include asset and vulnerability assessment, identifying needs, determining risk, helping communities plan for change. In addition to project resources, host sites provide supervision and mentorship.
The USM Career Hub serves as the critical bridge between graduate interns and the host sites. The Hub manages host site applications, payroll, tracking, and reporting. They also provide support, resume’ review, and interview practice. They host the onsite interviews for students with host site representatives and coordinate a celebratory poster session at the end of their internship to share out intern work with the larger community. In many cases, USM’s internship program also contributes financially when a host site’s small organizational budget cannot cover the full cost of the internship.
Maine Climate Corps Network (under Volunteer Maine) is the final leg of the Muskie Resiliency Internship program, providing the resiliency interns with additional learning resources, training, and networking opportunities, as well as the option to include affiliation with the Maine Climate Corps as part of their work experience.
✦ Here’s What Some of the Muskie Resiliency Interns have been up to:
◆ Dianna Farrell
Internship Site: Midcoast Council of Governments (Summer 2024)
Dianna was the first Muskie Resiliency Intern, working with MCOG on a GIS-based culvert assessment project in Sagadahoc County to prioritize sites across the county where improvements would benefit communities economically or with respect to safety, emergency response, and habitat concerns. She attended stakeholder meetings and worked with the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust.
◆ Joshua Richards
Internship Site: Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, Walpole, Maine (Summer 2025)
Josh conducted research with the MAIC. Working with a Town of Harpswell committee and working group, Josh conducted interviews to document their process, data analysis, and participated in community meetings to better understand and document issues related to commercial fishing and aquaculture. This work laid the groundwork for larger efforts that are being conducted currently. As part of this work, Josh had the opportunity to present at the Northeast Aquaculture Conference and Exposition. Following his internship, he was hired full-time to work for MAIC.
◆ Hafsa Sharif and Sandlin Preecs
Internship Site: Camoin Associates (Summer and Fall 2025)
Hafsa and Sandlin conducted economic resilience analyses for the City of Lewiston and the Town of Stonington, Maine. This work included completing literature reviews, in-depth interviews, surveys, and data analysis, as well as in-person meetings with municipal leaders and stakeholders. Both interns worked with Muskie Advisory Board Chair Jim Damicis of Camoin and Dr. Zollitsch as part of the internship, developing research methods and processes for developing economic resilience reports for use by communities. Both interns had the opportunity to present findings at the Maine Sustainability Conference. Sandlin was hired by Camoin Associates in Fall 2026. Hafsa completed her degree this semester.
◆ Leah Zwain
Internship Site: Friends of Presumpscot River, Westbrook, Maine (Year-long 2025-2026)
Leah worked to organize and engage the public in river conservation and restoration in an extended internship that spanned from Spring to Fall 2026. This work included work with organizational leadership and partners, designing and conducting an online survey, planning and coordinating special events to raise awareness and connect people with their local waters, and information gathering as part of the Presumpscot 2040 planning team. Leah shares that the reason this work is so compelling to her is that FOPR is an organization that is committed to protecting the rights of the river itself, not just the people who live and recreate on it. Leah has been hired to work for FOPR part-time following her internship, as she finishes her MPPM degree.
◆ James Patefield
Internship Site: City of Saco (Summer 2025)
James worked with both the Planning and Water Resource Recovery Departments. His work focused on evaluating current and historic impact fees for the Route 1 / Portland Road corridor. In this work, James reviewed impact fees and examined the calibration of utility fees to water usage. In this work he examined data from multiple departments and the state. He also developed a request for proposals (RFPs) and both scripted and recorded public education videos to help explain complex processes. James was offered ongoing work with the city after the end of his internship.
◆ Matthew Starr
Internship Site: GrowSmart Maine (Summer 2026)
Matthew researched and evaluated GrowSmart’s legislative advocacy model (Policy Action 2025) and rural technical assistance program (building community strength) to determine impact and opportunities. This work included mapping recent legislative work on zoning preemption and growth management, meeting with municipal and legislative practitioners, and developing evaluation reports. His work also helped document that a primary reason nonprofit organizations don’t apply for large grants that they need is a lack of staff time and expertise, recommending funding programs designed to support sustainable development may need to support smaller NPO grant writing in order to meet their intended goals.
◆ Ashley Salguero-Gonzalez
Internship Site: City of Saco (Summer 2026)
Ashley worked to develop formal mechanisms to gather information on the city’s initiatives, projects, and work that departments, committees, boards, commissions, and groups based on Saco's Comprehensive Plan for a new growth report. She presented findings to leadership staff. She also assisted with the design of resilience studies and made suggestions for updates to Water Department documents that were completed following her internship.
◆ Lydia Pease
Internship Site: Maine Redevelopment Land Bank Authority (Fall 2025)
Lydia worked to complete a two-phase project working to digitize parcel maps where towns are working to acquire and redevelop parcels of land. In her first outreach phase, she contacted county governments, towns, and regional planning commissions to understand related past and current efforts. In her second phase, she digitized tax maps. This work created an accessible online resource for the land bank and town for their work with stakeholders engaged in community economic redevelopment, especially in Hartland and Millinocket, Maine. She shared that the internship allowed her to develop applied GIS skills, which she sees as critical for her planned career in planning and sustainability.
➜ Coming Soon!
In the Spring 2027, Muskie Resiliency Interns will be hosted at the National Association of Wetland Managers, the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission, Resilient Roots LLC, Camoin Associates, and the Friends of the Presumpscot River.