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Intern: September – December, 2014 Teresa Johnson attends Middle Tennessee State University and began studying at the university in August 2011. A management major in the Jones College of Business, she has a passion for crisis management and disaster relief supply chain and logistics. She is currently a senior and is expecting to graduate in May 2015 with a Bachelor’s degree in Management with minors in Business Administration and Sociology. Starting in August of 2014, she began The Washington Center’s International Affairs program in Washington D.C. Through The Washington Center, she was offered a semester-long internship with the International Institute of Global Resilience. During her time at IIGR, she will work on research related to the trend of volunteerism in disaster relief.
Before coming to intern at the International Institute of Global Resilience, I was interested in emergency management and disaster resilience but had very little experience in the field. I was, of course, extremely excited to have been given the opportunity to intern at IIGR under the supervision of Leo Bosner, former FEMA employee of 28 + years. In addition, the team at IIGR encouraged enlightenment not only in the area of disaster resilience but a work place environment of which I also had little experience in prior to my internship. My project with IIGR was to write a research paper on Disaster Voluntarism in the United States and internationally with primary focus on Japan. I had previous experience in gathering research and organizing that research into a paper; however, I had written nothing this extensive or that held the possibility of being highly reviewed. But, as stated before, I worked with individuals who were helpful and invaluable during my time at IIGR. After IIGR, I feel more confident in my ability to be a successful researcher. The working paper that I wrote can be reviewed by future employers and/or graduate schools. My experience at IIGR was excellent. My internship reaffirmed that emergency management and disaster resilience is the field that I wish to make a career in. IIGR is a wonderful organization that strives to share its knowledge of emergency management with everyone. I was truly honored to have been able to work in that amazing environment.
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