Internship: Hannah Blinn, MSUS ‘19
At first, Master of Sustainability student Hannah Blinn was trying to solve two problems–satisfying an internship requirement while she looked for a thesis topic.
“That's when I approached my stats professor (Assistant Professor of Water Resources), Ryan Utz,” she says. In his class, “I absolutely fell in love with data analytics and programming, so I knew I wanted to do something data-related.”
Utz had a student the previous year who did a project with the Southwestern PA Environmental Health Project (EHP), an organization that assists and supports residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD, or fracking). He put Blinn in touch with the organization. The fit was good, and Blinn secured an internship.
Blinn began developing a project stimulated by EHP data. “They have health data dating back to 2012 for people living in southwestern Pennsylvania,” she says. She looked specifically at the gastrointestinal and dermal symptoms that people were experiencing compared with where active gas wells are in Southwestern PA. She used quantitative analysis and mapping to look for a correlation, and at what kind of relationships might be indicated. Blinn notes that previous similar studies have focused on proximity to an individual well. In contrast, her work emphasizes density: “not how close you live to one well, but how close you live to many wells.”
Blinn had entered the internship with an area of interest, EHP had given her access to relevant data, and her faculty committee guided her through analysis and conclusions. “Dr. Utz, who got this project started, was my chair. He helped me immensely with the statistics part and a lot of the technical writing pieces.” Dr. Melissa Bednarek from the School of Health Sciences also sat on the committee, and helped Blinn interpret some of the health results. The third member was Dave Brown from the Environmental Health Project, whose expertise in toxicology was formative for the project.
At the end of the thesis she met with the committee. “We walked through the thesis and people gave input. They signed off on it and I passed!”
But it wasn’t the end. “Because of my internship with EHP, I was offered a position to be an Environmental Health Fellow with them,” she says. The one-year position involves “doing health impact assessments. We go into communities that are preparing to go up against maybe the council or the gas company who wants to come in and use land in their Township,” to document any health issues they might experience as a result of fracking activity.
The work has been successful as well. “They offered me a position to stay on after the fellowship ends.”
Though Blinn is pleased with her work in sustainability, she plans to apply next for a Doctor of Public Health degree. “I was contemplating applying to start next fall, but those programs typically like you to have some work experience first.” So the continuing position and its additional experience are ideal.
“I really enjoy working here, and I’m lucky to be working in public health, so I was more than eager to immediately say yes and just stay on. I'll be doing a community air monitoring project.”
Blinn comments, “If not for the faculty and resources at Chatham, I would not have been able to make the connection with EHP, complete a thesis I am truly proud of, and end up with a position in a field I am very passionate about. My work at Chatham and EHP has encouraged me to stay in the public health field and hopefully find more opportunities for research an community-based projects around improving health for all.”