At Sustainable San Mateo County, we believe empowering youth is key to building a sustainable future. This year, we’re proud to welcome our 2025 Student and Intern Class—eight passionate and talented students and recent graduates ready to dive into the world of policy research and community engagement.

They’ll play a vital role in developing our 2025 Indicators Report, which spotlights local sustainability challenges and solutions, and contribute fresh ideas to our Ideas Bank. Along the way, they’ll gain hands-on experience in stakeholder outreach, real-world problem-solving and policy analysis—while also earning credit as co-authors of a major publication.

This internship also opens doors: interns build professional networks, sharpen their skills and receive personal references to help launch their careers in sustainability and public policy.

We’re excited to introduce this incredible team! A big thank you to our generous sponsors who make this program possible. Interested in supporting the next generation of changemakers? Contact us at sponsor@sustainablesanmateo.org.

2025 Summer Interns

Taylor Elich

  • A Junior at UC Berkeley
  • Majoring in Environmental Economics and Policy and minoring in Data Science
  • Passions: environmental impact analysis, ESG analysis, environmental justice and policy, hiking local trails, cooking and thrifting

Taylor is interested in this year’s Indicators Report because she’s always been a proponent of local solutions and individual action to work towards broader environmental change. She sees food waste as the perfect case for this, where we as local communities have direct power to create positive change.

Sophia Garcia

  • A Junior at UC Berkeley
  • Majoring in Environmental Economics and Policy
  • Passions: playing guitar, journaling, baking, being outdoors

Sophia is excited to contribute to this year’s Indicators Report on organic waste because she believes that food justice plays a big role in helping communities access healthy food while also taking better care of the planet.

Jess Zhao

  • A Junior at UC Berkeley
  • Majoring in Society & Environment
  • Passions: urban gardening, environmental justice, singing, soup-making and climate fiction

Jess is excited about this year’s Indicator’s Report because she is passionate about connecting people to the environmental implications of our daily consumption in empowering, hands-on, community-oriented ways.

Sustainable Cities Students

Magdalena Ohstrom

  • A Senior at Stanford University
  • Majoring in Environmental Systems with a minor in Sustainable Urban Studies and a ’26 masters degree in Sustainable Design and Construction
  • Passions: Green building design, social and environmental sustainability through engineering, listening to audiobooks & hopping on the train to explore somewhere new

Magdalena is part of the Sustainable Cities class at Stanford working with SSMC to research plant-based policies that cities and the county can adopt. She is collecting feedback regarding the ability for jurisdictions to advocate for these policies.

Eliza Siebers

  • A Junior at Stanford University
  • Double majoring in Architecture and Urban Studies
  • Passions: learning about the intersection of policy and design, reading and discovering new music

Eliza is also part of the Sustainable Cities class at Stanford. She too is working with SSMC to identify policy approaches that promote plant-based food consumption and reduce emissions, and she is collecting feedback for how jurisdictions can advocate for and adopt these policies.

2025 Spring Interns

Lillian Shapona

  • A freshman at Santa Clara University
  • Double majoring in Environmental Studies and English in the Honors Program
  • Passions: wildlife conservation, creative writing, music and spending time outside

As president of the Plant Futures Initiative chapter at Santa Clara University, Lillian has applied her leadership in promoting plant-centered food systems to her research at SSMC. Her research for the 2025 Indicators Report is focused on analyzing school district food offerings, institutional food service providers, and regional food recovery efforts.

Justin Huang

  • UC Santa Barbara, Class of 2024
  • Political Science Major
  • Passions: cooking, coastal vegetation, alternative music and the Minnesota Timberwolves

Justin is currently researching food systems and waste for the 2025 Indicators Report. He is surveying stakeholders to assess SB 1383 implementation, identifying what’s driving progress and what barriers remain to increasing waste diversion.

Sydney Chen

  • Incoming First-Year at Northwestern University
  • Economics and Environmental Policy Double Major
  • Passions: sustainability, hiking, animals, cooking, dance and community service

Sydney is currently working on a new Ideas Bank solution for reusable utensils programs in schools. She is researching reusable foodware programs, focusing on implementation barriers and success factors, drawing from her leadership in Burlingame High’s sustainability projects and her pilot Reusable Utensil Ware program at Green Hills Elementary School.