It may be summer, but we’re keeping busy! We’re excited to announce that we’ve brought on three full-time interns for the summer. They’re jumping right in and lending their talents and expertise to various projects, and they are already making great contributions. Read on to meet our new interns!

 

Ryan Carlino

Ryan is thrilled to work with Woollard Nichols & Associates as an intern this summer where he is lending his expertise in survey development and data analysis to the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs (ATOD) in Austin/Travis County needs assessment. Ryan discovered his passion for harm reduction, substance use support, and criminal justice policy as a volunteer with harm reduction programs in Austin and Denver. This passion took him to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin where he discovered a love for surveys, quantitative data analysis, and data visualization. He graduated with a Master of Public Affairs degree in May 2019. Ryan will work full-time as a state and local government consultant with a firm in Austin in the fall. In the meantime, he is loving the opportunity to learn more about ATOD services in Austin and to use many of the skills he picked up in graduate school on the project with WNA.

When he is not getting lost in SurveyMonkey or Excel spreadsheets, Ryan enjoys escaping the Austin heat at Barton Springs, trying out new recipes, eating an unspeakable amount of popcorn at the Alamo Drafthouse, and playing with his chihuahua pug mix dog named Buster. He watches The Great British Bake Off religiously, knows a weird amount of trivia about The Real World MTV reality series, and is currently reading books to relearn the history of the American South.

 

Megan Cole

Megan recently graduated with her Masters of Public Health, with a specific focus on Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences. Her public health interests include needs assessments, program planning and development, and program evaluation; all with a focus on low socioeconomic status populations. She also has a passion to directly serve communities, and use those communities as experts in identifying and preventing health issues.

Megan is currently working on two needs assessment projects for Woollard Nichols & Associates, with a particular focus on the research aspects of each project. In collaboration with the Director Research and Evaluation, Megan is working on capturing data from stakeholders to inform future steps and practices.

 

Monika Shah

Monika Shah is excited to be joining the Woollard Nichols & Associates team as a Summer Intern to work on the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Needs Assessment Project for Travis County. Monika recently graduated from the UTHealth Science Center School of Public Health with her MPH in Epidemiology, and she is passionate about understanding behavior-associated health conditions in a population. Monika is motivated to apply her interests in behavioral health to this project, and help serve the community by providing a detailed analysis of trends and resources of substance and alcohol use in Austin. She is looking forward to creating a positive impact through her work with Woollard Nichols & Associates this summer!