August 08, 2024

ELPC’s 2024 Summer Interns Bring Ideas & Energy to the Office

This summer's cohort of 11 interns worked with legal, policy, and communications teams to protect the Midwest environment

By Lillian Eig, ELPC Communications Intern

ELPC interns are critical to the success of the team as whole, working together across different disciplines and offices to address the Midwest’s most pressing environmental challenges. This summer’s cohort of 11 interns worked with the legal, policy, and communications teams to enrich the organization and their own career paths.

As summer winds down and we begin to say goodbye, we wanted to highlight each intern’s background and what they have been working on. Each brings unique skills and experiences, new energy and ideas, that contribute to ELPC and help protect the environment.

Legal Interns

Sydney White

Sydney White is from Quitman, TX and went to UT Austin for undergrad. She is at the University of Minnesota’s law school in her third year. She hopes to learn from some of the best environmental advocates in the Midwest this summer at ELPC. She also hopes to gain as much knowledge about environmental and energy law as possible and what it is like to work for a non-profit. She is working on wetlands issues and energy issues this summer and is hoping to pursue environmental law post-grad.

Jackson Darby

Jackson Darby is from Batavia, IL and studied at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for undergrad. He is finishing his third year of law school at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. This summer at ELPC he hopes to gain a unique perspective of the environmental legal landscape and start using his legal skills to make a positive impact on the earth. He is working on defending the national forests from misguided logging and on facilities that have yet to adapt to climate change.

Dilara Erhan

Dilara Erhan is from Grand Rapids, MI. She studied at Michigan State for undergrad and is now at Vermont Law School finishing her third year. She hopes to meet new people and grow her connections and sense of the legal world in Chicago. She also wants to improve her legal research and writing skills. She is working on CAFO’s, clean air, and water quality this summer.

Moriah Daniels

Moriah Daniels is from Buffalo, NY and studied at SUNY Geneseo for undergrad. She is finishing her third year at Lewis and Clark law school. This summer, she hopes to understand how the environmental law field works in practice and put her knowledge to use pursuing environmental justice in a local and regional way.  This summer she is working on energy law, environmental justice, climate solutions, and clean air.

Bryce Merges

Bryce Merges is from Ames, IA and went to the University of Iowa for undergrad. He just finished his first year at the University of Iowa College of Law. At ELPC, he is hoping to gain more legal experience while helping to make a significant impact on the improvement of the environment and help keep rates low for electric customers in Iowa. He is working in the Des Moines office mostly on electric rate making cases with the Iowa Utilities Commission.

Rachel Schwartz

Rachel Schwartz is from Cheltenham, PA and went to Williams college for undergrad. She is currently finishing her fourth and final year of a four-year JJ/MPP program at University of Chicago Law School. She hopes to immerse herself in the work at ELPC and understand what it is like to be a part of an environmental non-profit while learning from great attorneys and policy advocates while contributing to the good work being done at ELPC. She has been focusing on profecting the National Wildlife Refuges this summer.

Policy Interns

Karisa Candreva

Karisa Candreva is from Crown Point, IN and she studied at Ball State for undergrad and is in her second year of Law school at IU McKinney. This summer, she hopes to gain experience in environmental law and in different sectors of environmental law to have more direction on what she wants to pursue. She is working on the electric school bus project, shoreline resilience, idling redaction research and coal ash research this summer.

Hanan Abdillahi

Hanan Abdillahi is from Bolingbrook, IL and just graduated from Loyola Chicago with a degree in Environmental Policy and Political Science. This summer she is hoping to see how policy works in action and contribute to projects that deal with topics she is passionate about. She also wants to broaden her perspective and learn new things. She is also working on the electric school bus initiative as well as updating the Great Lakes directory.

Jess Senger

Jess Senger is from Oak Park, IL and just finished her Undergrad degree at the University of Chicago studying Environmental Science. She hopes to work with community groups to be able to discover and connect them to policies and government and social services. She is also working on the electric school bus initiative, and she is also working on reaching out to student groups to get them interested in advocating for electric school buses.

David Reynolds

David Reynolds is from Farfield, CT and will graduate from University of Chicago in 2026 with a major in Political Science and Latin American Studies. He is hoping to gain experience with policies that directly affect people and gain exposure to the legal field as he is considering law school. He is mainly working on the Electric School Bus initiative.

Ben Dickerson

Ben Dickerson is a policy and Science intern. Ben is from Austin, TX and got his undergrad degree from the University of Texas at Austin with an English major and a Rhetoric & Writing minor. He is starting his third year of Law School at the University of Wisconsin at Madison focusing on environmental law, employment law and labor law. This summer he hopes to expand his understanding of environmental law and policy to become a more effective advocate for environmental conservation, protection and stewardship. This summer, ben has drafted objections to the Kidrick Vegetation Management Project, researched environmental Law and regulations to bolster our climate positions. His pain project this summer is formulating ELPC’s response to the National Old-Growth Amendment Plan, or NOGA

Communications

Lillian Eig

Finally, we have our Communications intern Lillian Eig. Lillian is from Chicago, IL and will graduate from Syracuse University with a policy degree in May of 2025. She is hoping to continue to learn how to bridge the policy and communications worlds and understand the two worlds can fit together in an organization setting. She is working across the communications team on social and graphics, blogs and research and website updates.

Thank you!

As we near the end of our summer internship program, it’s clear that our interns have been eager to learn and grow with us. Their enthusiasm and dedication have brought fresh ideas and perspectives to our office, making a positive impact on our teams.

We are so excited to see what they continue to do with the future of their bright careers.