The Cornell Institute for Climate Change and Agriculture is pleased to have two interns working on our team for this summer, Jacob Sackett and Rachel Erlebacher. Our interns will be working on a number of projects this summer with some highlights being our Climate Smart Farm Stories project, dairy heat stress project, and agricultural stakeholder assessment project.
The interns are already compiling lists of agricultural stakeholders in New York who will be tapped for future outreach and surveys. Over the course of the summer, our interns plan to visit farms and participate in Cornell Cooperative Extension meetings for outreach and to collect firsthand information from farmers about how climate change is affecting them and what steps they are taking to adapt. They will be helping prepare for a weird weather exhibit at Empire Farm Days.
Jacob Sackett
Jacob is a rising senior in Cornell’s Agricultural Sciences program, concentrating in sustainability and minoring in business. Jacob is from Delhi, N.Y., a small, rural town in Central New York. He hopes to attend law school upon graduating from Cornell and has been interested in environmental science and climate change throughout his academic career.
This summer, Jacob will be based at the Climate Change and Agriculture Institute in Ithaca, working with researchers from Cornell’s Pro-Dairy program on a dairy heat stress literature review project, to lay the groundwork for development of a dairy cattle heat stress tool that will be used to help dairy farmers in a changing climate. Additionally, Jacob will be scheduling farm visits with local farmers in the Finger Lakes Region to discuss how climate change is affecting farming in the region and steps that farmers are taking to adapt to the changes that they are seeing.
Rachel Erlebacher
Rachel is a rising junior in CALS, majoring in Environmental Science and Sustainability with a minor in Jewish Studies. Rachel is from Pleasant Valley, N.Y., a small town in Dutchess County. She is very excited to be working on climate change efforts in her hometown at the Cornell Cooperative Extension office in Dutchess County.
Rachel will be developing a statewide agricultural stakeholder list and preparing a literature review on farmers perceptions of climate change perceptions and adaptation, which will lay the groundwork for a stakeholder survey of farmers in New York later this year. She also will be interviewing and filming farmers in the Hudson Valley about how extreme weather and climate variability is affecting their operations and how they are adapting. The videos will be used for peer-to-peer outreach and education.
Learn more about the CCE Summer Internship Program.