DME Interns

Catherine Del Fierro goes to Cal Poly Pomona and is a business administration major with a concentration in business management and human resources; she has also worked as a background investigator, running background checks for clients. In the future, Catherine hopes to work at a company with a thriving work environment but ultimately wants to become a professor.

Catherine wanted to get more HR experience and found out about the VA’s DME Internship through a virtual career fair at her college. There she learned about the benefits and scholarships that the DME Internship offers. Catherine is especially concerned about the recent arrival of virtual learning, which poses another challenge and opportunity for Catherine to engage with more students and professors online through her experience in Human Resources.

Sarah Concepcion is the Co-Department Head of the writing department at the DME Internship. Sarah got her bachelor’s degree in English at George Mason University in Virginia and is currently working on getting her master’s degree in History. Sarah finds the changes from the pandemic not detrimental to having a community with other interns and the virtual office hours that she and her other CO-DH have at the end of each month help open up discussion or questions writing interns might have. Sarah was also active member in the Folger’s Shakespeare Library which is one of the largest collections of Shakespeare’s work in the world. Sarah said she wanted to join the writing department because it is “simple outlining of a person’s life, explaining what they do and how their service was important. It also gives the public an idea of the types of variations there are in military service.” Her responsibilities as a Department Head include reviewing the metrics of intern’s writing projects and deciding what would best help new interns.

Guillermo Osorio is a DME writing intern from San Antonia, Texas. Guillermo was in the Marine Corps and Army from 2008-2009, and was also awarded the Army Achievement Award, Army Commendation Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and the National Defense Service Medal.

Guillermo found out about the DME Internship through his university’s website and thought joining would look good with his communications degree that he received from Ohio State University and the University of Maryland Global Campus. Guillermo works on the Borne the Battle Podcast and finds his work meaningful in many ways to veterans like him. The Borne the Battle podcast invites veterans to be interviewed by the host, Tanner Iskra, that is later reviewed by the transcription team and Guillermo and other writing interns who listen to the podcast and come up with a story to be put in the Borne the Battle blog.

Guillermo is a member of the Student Veterans of America, which is an organization of veterans that have served in the military and want to transfer some of their academic skills into the professional and academic world. The group instills leadership and communications skills to their many chapters in academic institutions.

One of the things that Guillermo says will help new interns who want to join the DME Internship is to “make the most of the experience, make the most of the work and the learning as much of whatever program you’re trained in.” The experience of this internship will help you not only in the classroom but later on in life in whatever field that looks for the experience and skills Guillermo and others have gained through their dedication with the internship every day.

This is Sarah Kowalewski’s second year with the DME internship as a graphic design intern. Sarah’s interest in veterans began when a family friend, who served in the Vietnam War and had dealt with PTSD, inspired Sarah to take the first step to helping veterans. Her job as a graphic design intern involves creating #VeteranOfTheDay, A Veterans Story and Veteran Resources graphics, as well as overseeing other projects by new interns. #VeteranOfTheDay posts, or VODs, are collaborated on Trello and crafted by many departments which showcase the life and valor of a selected veteran. The graphic design team has to find good quality pictures of the veteran and display their medals and the branch of the military that veteran has served in. Sarah is also a co-division officer of Veteran Resources where she helps gather and approve resources and puts together a weekly newsletter that goes out every week on the VA website.

Ivan Shires is a senior that studies Computer and Information Systems and minors in Digital Data Storytelling at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. As a web analytics intern at the DME internship program, Ivan’s daily tasks include making the DME Interns website run better by improving the accessibility for users, checking the content quality of the website and lowering the bounce rate (leaving one page of a website and going to another) by keeping people engaged with the content and graphics of the website. His duties as head of the analytics department include making sure everyone is on track with their web analytics training, weekly reports and knows how to use programs like Tableau and Google Analytics for their projects.

Alexys Santiago is a second-year student at Gallaudet University, a private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C. Santiago is currently majoring in public health and is considering becoming an audiologist or researcher when she enrolls in graduate school. Santiago is part of the research team at the DME internship. Her responsibility as a research intern entails finding articles about veterans, verifying them with other sources to determine whether the articles are plagiarized or not. She says that communication on Slack is important for fostering a better community with fellow interns.

Elizabeth Manriquez is a first-year intern with the DME program and is part of the Born to Battle podcast transcription team. For Elizabeth, transcription is very “relaxing” and “meditative” compared to her college classes. In high school, Elizabeth was the Salutatorian for her graduating class during the pandemic and remembers the strange graduation she had online with her class. Elizabeth currently studies biochemistry at Texas University at Austin. Elizabeth wants to research medicine when she graduates and go to medical school.

Latesha Thornhill is a researcher and fact-checker at the DME internship. Latesha is from a military family and learned the importance of critical thinking and ethical, accurate storytelling from her father who was a Navy veteran. Majoring in Philosophy, Political Science and East Asian Studies led Latesha to join the research/fact-check team with the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) VA internship.

In this episode of DME Intern Podcast, we have our special guest Duncan McGuigan. Duncan is a Swiss American citizen and currently attends Portland State. Both of Duncan’s parents are artists which may have influenced Duncan to work in different fields, such as art, education, and food service. Duncan is a European studies Major and wants to pursue a master degree in Berlin when he graduates. He wants to work in International Affairs or Public Relations (PR), preferably in Germany. Duncan hopes what he is learning from the DME internship can “solidify me as a responsible, capable adult.”

A junior in college, Army ROTC cadet and writing intern for the VA-DME team, Joanna sheds light on her day-to-day life juggling all of her responsibilities and how they have shaped who she is today. Taking the chance in high school with their Navy JROTC program, she came to realize a passion toward the career paths and work which military service can provide. She credits the program for helping to develop her character and attaining the work ethic, which she brings to all of her endeavors including this internship. Studying psychology and leadership in college, all the while participating in ROTC, Joanna grew a particular interest and respect for the veteran community as she seeks to give back to those who served. Her ideals, experiences and desire to work with people led her to find the VSFS VA-DME internship. She is excited to be a part of a team that is giving her the opportunity to be a part of a team that highlights veterans and gives them recognition for their service.