Meet Yulia Haile, a junior Environmental Studies and Global Health double major here at Denison who spent this past summer in Nepal doing research with UC Berkeley! In the summer of 2022, Yulia began a research internship with the UC Berkeley Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. After being paired up with a professor, she would then begin to assist them in their respective research project on biodigesters, a small scale source of renewable energy in rural Nepal. The goal was to make biodigesters more efficient so they can provide a more environmentally friendly cooking fuel option to Nepali households. In addition, the study was designed to provide the Nepali government with credible data to base their future initiatives to expand the accessibility of biodigesters in Nepal.
Throughout her time in Nepal, Yulia had a number of accomplishments. She led four focus groups with the help of community health workers. Her team’s abstract was accepted into the UNC Water Conference that she was able to attend the following fall semester. She was even asked to work with UC Berkeley again this coming summer. However, despite the number of accomplishments Yulia achieved this summer, there were some challenges.
During her time in Nepal, Yulia worked with people of varying education levels, particularly doctoral students. Adjusting to the different vernacular definitely presented a challenge. Moreover, she had come into an ongoing project, so making sure she understood previous progress was another challenge.
Despite the challenges, Yulia found the experience to be incredibly rewarding and urges current undergraduate students to seize any and all opportunities: “You should always take every opportunity. Don’t sell yourself short.”
If you would like to connect with Yulia to learn more about her time interning with UC Berkely, don’t hesitate to connect with her via email: haile_y1@denison.edu
