Wildcat of the Week: Lucero Flores ’18
Lucero Flores ’18
“Unless we make our world more sustainable, we won’t have the resources left to tackle the other challenges that we face,” says Lucero Flores ’18. With funding from the Summer Internship Grant Program (SIGP) and the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, Flores has spent the past two summers interning with environmental organizations in Nicaragua and Thailand.
Flores—an earth and planetary studies major and philosophy minor from Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood—focused on internships that would help her develop a stronger understanding of global environmental issues. “I am trying to learn as much as I can about the planet and minds of people who live on it,” says Flores. “With that knowledge, I hope to spread the ideas I learn all over the world.”
Inspired by her community service work and her father, who studied agricultural engineering in Mexico, Flores interned in a rural community in Nicaragua in summer 2015. She focused on sustainability projects— helping to increase biodiversity in agriculture, running an after-school program, and building a composting latrine and solar panels for the community.
In 2016, Flores headed to Thailand, where she worked with EnerGaia, a company that produces nutrient-rich, sustainable spirulina algae by converting the rooftops of Bangkok into urban farms.
Since its launch ten years ago, SIGP has enabled more than 940 Northwestern students like Flores to pursue life changing unpaid summer learning experiences. Many of these students complete internships abroad through a partnership between SIGP and the Buffet Institute.
“The grants have made a huge difference in my life,” says Flores. “I have a lot more perspective, understanding, and respect for different people and environments. I could have read that all in a textbook—that people from Nicaragua and Bangkok are doing x, y, and z—but experiencing that firsthand has pushed me through problems and allowed me to learn from my experiences rather than someone else’s.”
On May 8, the Northwestern Alumni Association and will launch a weeklong campaign through Catalyzer, Northwestern’s crowdfunding platform, to raise funds for SIGP.
To learn more, visit the SIGP website or contact Jamie Strait, senior director of development for parent giving and student affairs, at 847-467-6912.