General

This summer Julia Steketee (left) used her French and some Wolof to speak with Senegalese women about health issues in Dakar.

Over the summer, Furniture Design major Julia Steketee 18 FD explored the world of 2D half a world away, flexing her photography and graphic design muscles as an intern at Speak Up Africa in Dakar, Senegal. The organization focuses on advocacy and communication with an emphasis on health-related projects like Zero Malaria Starts with Me.

“A big part of the experience was being a woman on my own in West Africa,” says the native of Atlanta, GA, who learned some Wolof – the local language – while also speaking with locals in French. “People were really friendly and open and wanted to show me how wonderful their country is.”

Steketee’s father works in public health, so when she began looking for summer internships he helped connect her with Speak Up Africa. Through RISD Careers, she learned that she could apply for a Textron Award, which helped to finance the experience. “I wanted to use my design skills in an NGO environment,” Steketee explains, “to help people through design. And I like the fact that Speak Up Africa is run by Senegalese people, giving Africans a voice.”

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As a summer intern at NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, senior Joyce Lin focused on fabricating models of Cuba’s swamps and coral reefs | photo courtesy AMNH/R. Mickens

As visitors to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in NYC beat the city heat and explored four floors of exhibits illuminating everything from dinosaurs to outer space, a team of curators, artists and research associates was busily at work up on the fifth floor. The space was closed off as the team painstakingly worked on ¡Cuba!, an exhibit that will open in November and explore in depth the island’s biodiversity, culture and history. Among the skilled fabricators and model makers working to ensure that the exhibit meets the AMNH’s high standards was rising senior Joyce Lin BRDD 17 FD, who landed a summer internship at the museum funded through a Textron Charitable Trust Fellowship.

“There are a lot of Cuban animals I was completely unfamiliar with,” says Lin – unique species “like the solenodon, a small but venomous rodent that’s found nowhere else on the planet.” In fact, 32% of Cuba’s vertebrates and 50% of its plants are endemic to the island. Other species the exhibit will highlight include the endangered Cuban crocodile and the long extinct giant sloth.

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