It’s summertime—but that doesn’t mean a vacation from learning! Four interns are spending this summer gaining experience with us and pitching in on important Chesapeake Bay-focused projects. These paid internships run for 12 weeks, giving them solid insight into a potential career path—and supporting our busy summer of work.
Each intern is mentored by an expert on our staff who provides guidance for the intern’s summer project. Our four interns also participate in sessions with a larger group of Chesapeake Bay-focused interns to develop career and networking skills. We partner with the Chesapeake Research Consortium to make these internships possible.
Who are our dynamic interns for summer 2026, and what projects are they working on?
Kate Koblegarde
Kate, who will enter her senior year at New York University this fall, is majoring in environmental economics. She learned about the Chesapeake Bay internships from another student who had previously interned with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office.
Kate is working on a way to put a value on restoring oyster reefs so policy makers can incentivize external funding for oyster reef conservation in the Chesapeake Bay estuary. It’s a complex model; she’s including denitrification, phosphorus sequestration, and how oyster reefs provide habitat for blue crab and striped bass.
“Throughout this process, I aim to quantify the value of ecosystem services to design a market where the right actors pay for the mitigation of relevant environments,” she explained. “Experiences such as estuarine field work, policy and literature synthesis, and communicating with organizations will guide me to reach these goals.”
Being outdoors—and appreciating the value nature provides to her life—got Kate on the path toward her current studies.
“I grew up in Oregon frequently visiting the coast, playing in tidepools, swimming in rivers, and skiing and hiking the mountains. The nature that surrounded me provided a reliable sanctuary. Learning about the factors contributing to degrading the environment in my home, and more severely in other parts of the world, led me to pursue environmental economics. In this field I can design solutions that are incentivized and financeable. With this focus, my work is both fulfilling and passion driven with deliverable results.”
Oyster reefs are one type of Chesapeake Bay habitat, but Kate finds other Bay habitats interesting, too.
“I am most fascinated by submerged aquatic vegetation such as seagrass and attached macro-algae (aside from when it gets tangled in my toes while swimming). It provides so many services to habitats and water filtration that I hope to learn more about it throughout my time at the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office.”
Elizabeth Moty
Liz is a rising senior at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School for the Environment and Natural Resources. She is studying sustainability, ecology, and policy with a concentration in applied ecology. She’s also minoring in soil science and geospatial technologies.
Liz applied for the internship at the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office through the Chesapeake Research Consortium after she saw an advertisement for the opportunity online. This summer, she is helping with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System and the hypoxia monitoring programs by working on the maintenance, deployment, and retrieval of sensors. She is also developing updates for the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard map product.
“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to gain hands-on fisheries experience outside of the classroom. It’s always thrilling when I am able to apply the information I have been learning these past few years in my degree,” she said. “I also want to further develop my field skills and continue to gain experience with different field sampling techniques.”
Her work is a great fit for some of her classroom learning: “I’m looking to develop real-world applications of my geospatial knowledge. I’d like to contribute to meaningful data visualizations and create a product that can be used beyond my time here this summer.”
Liz’s time this summer is a natural extension of her interests.
“Ever since I was a kid I always have had a passion for the outdoors. I was fascinated with the critters that would run around in my backyard, and when the time came to decide what major I’d be pursuing in college, I knew I wanted to focus on something meaningful and impactful,” she explained. “Choosing to study ecology was based on my own fascination with the natural world but also wanting to be a part of the movement protecting it. I had the opportunity to take my first fisheries class last fall, and I fell in love with the subject through our hands-on field training in a multitude of sampling techniques from e-fishing to midwater trawling. Fish are awesome!”
(We agree!)
Given her work with sensors that track conditions in the water column, it makes sense that an aspect of the Bay that interests her involves a beloved species using the water column.
“The Chesapeake Bay habitat has so many different moving parts but what intrigues me the most is the fact that we have dolphins that come far up into the Bay! I always knew that they hung out around the mouth of the Bay, but I had no idea that they traveled as far up as I saw them in the Choptank River earlier this summer.”
Oluwole Okusanya
Oluwole, who will graduate in spring 2027 from Towson University, is majoring in computer science with a focus on data science and data engineering. He came across the internship opportunity when he was searching for data-focused internships online.
This summer, Oluwole is taking a deep dive into data acquired by our observation platforms, including the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System and hypoxia monitoring stations. He’s working to create several data-driven tools that will help scientists as they track conditions on and in the Chesapeake.
“I'm building Python data pipelines and visualizations for environmental monitoring,” he said. “That includes wind and wave ‘rose’ tools pulling from the buoy data, plotting systems for conductivity, temperature, and depth sensor readings, and an automated quality-control system that flags dissolved oxygen data to help track hypoxia in the Choptank River. That system will follow national Quality Assurance of Real-Time Oceanographic Data standards.”
Oluwole is looking to connect some big, important dots this summer. He wants to learn “how environmental data science actually drives management decisions in the Bay, turning raw sensor readings into something scientists and decision-makers can trust and act on.”
Oluwole credits his research and professions for kick-starting his interest in data analytics.
“A geology professor in particular opened my eyes to how much data can shape environmental research, and that's what pulled me toward this field,” he explained.
Just as data provides an important foundation for so many decisions regarding the Bay, Oluwole finds salt marshes to be a foundational habitat in the Chesapeake. He appreciates “the way they buffer the shoreline and support so much of the Bay's life.”
Ruby Ondatje
Ruby is a rising senior at the University of Maryland, where she’s studying environmental science and policy, with a concentration in policy. She’s also minoring in health, humanities, and medicine. An advisor at her University suggested she explore the opportunity with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. This summer, she’s working with our science educators at the Environmental Science Training Center.
“My main project is creating a database of Chesapeake Bay watershed phenomena to promote phenomena-based learning in classrooms around the watershed,” Ruby said. “K-12 educators will use this database when developing phenomena-based lessons and Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences. Both are vital components for reaching the Chesapeake Bay Program’s education goals. I will also support the science education staff in educator workshops and outreach events.”
Ruby joined other NOAA experts at the Sail250 event in Baltimore, running an activity to help young event participants learn how salinity affects the Bay and the critters that live in it.
Ruby is eager to work with scientists and experts at NOAA Fisheries and beyond during her internship: “While working at NOAA this summer, I am particularly excited to collaborate with peers and mentors in collecting material for the database. I look forward to the opportunity to participate in fieldwork and learn from the experience and expertise of the staff.”
A Chesapeake Bay native, Ruby grew up surrounded by nature. “Witnessing environmental change in my own backyard motivated me to study policy as a method for change.”
Her time in the Chesapeake has led her to treasure a special habitat: “My favorite Chesapeake Bay habitat is the beautiful bay grasses, which provide habitat, dissolved oxygen, and filtration for polluted water.”
