Gainful employment beyond graduation is never a given, and with COVID-19, it’s become a whole new ballgame for many people.
For Garinn Pereira, a graduate student in the Dept. of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, a summer internship with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, via the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership, may help illuminate his future.
Garinn was awarded the position as part of the 2020 CAPAL Intern Program, which sponsors students to intern in the public sector. Besides the internship, he also completed a project to help engage more Asian American and Pacific Islander females in government.
"I am very proud of Garinn,” says HNFAS assistant professor Kacie Ho. “He consistently seeks opportunities to contribute his knowledge and skill set to Hawaiʻi and beyond. In addition to Garinn's work with the USDA and CAPAL, he has also mentored (local and visiting international) high school students with laboratory-based research projects and has developed hands-on demonstrations to promote food science and STEM with K-12 students."
Garinn adds, “Having this internship is giving me a taste of some of the work that is ongoing within the government that deal with managing plant/produce and soil that comes into our country.”
Read the CAPA spotlight on Garinn.