Deborah Sandoval '16 spent the summer in 2015 at Yellowstone National Park and Montana State University as the Office of Sustainability's first Yellowstone Sustainability Software Development/Technical Intern. The Internship was funded by the High Meadows Foundation Fund. Learn more about her experiences through this Q&A: 

Describe your role as the Yellowstone Sustainability Software Development/Technical Intern?

My role as an intern was to design and implement an energy dashboard for an off-grid facility in Yellowstone National Park: the Lamar Buffalo Ranch. The dashboard allows users to view information about energy consumption on the ranch and how it relates to factors such as temperature, time of day, and time of year, etc. Additionally, the dashboard would give energy information about the solar arrays located on-site. I worked with staff from Yellowstone and Montana State University to complete the project. 

What was a typical day like for you?

I lived on MSU’s campus and walked to work every day at the HVAC lab in the engineering building. The lab was made up of mechanical and industrial graduate students. I was able to work in Yellowstone periodically, where I helped with hardware maintenance and worked on installing my software on-site.

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