Meet our spring 2024 interns!

This Spring, GGWash is thrilled to welcome Gauri Girirajan and Beckett Neustad to our team as the newest GGWash interns – and to welcome Maya Hopkins and Adriana Vance back for a second semester.

Maya, Gauri, and Beckett will be supporting our community engagement, education, fundraising, and events, while Adriana is working with our policy team on research, data analysis, and advocacy. You may also see some posts from them over the next few months: we’re excited to learn from them!

As we work toward our vision of a Washington region where housing is abundant and affordable and it’s safe and easy to get around without a car, we’re so glad to have some of these rising leaders at the table.

We wanted to give Gauri and Beckett a chance to introduce themselves in their own words. Keep reading to see what they are excited about this semester.

Gauri Girirajan, Engagement Intern

Hi everyone! My name is Gauri Girirajan and I’m one of GGWash’s Spring Engagement Interns. I’m currently a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park where I’m studying Government & Politics. I’m minoring in GIS and International Development/Conflict Management which I hope to use for spatial and data analyses of international conflict.

I am from Rockville, Maryland and I was incredibly fortunate to grow up in such a diverse area filled with people who come from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. I learned to value diversity of experience and the unique perspective that it offers to our communities.

In high school, I was always really grateful for the public transportation in my area and the opportunities that it afforded me. I could take the RideOn bus to and from school, the library, the movie theater, and even the metro station which took me right to DC. I was especially lucky during my sophomore year when a bill passed to make the bus free for Montgomery County Public School students! These experiences taught me to really value public transportation and accessible cities.

I am excited to work for GGWash this semester because I think there is strong alignment between my values and inclusive communities and accessible transportation! Having accessible housing that’s near reliable transit services, schools, grocery stores, and other public amenities is vital for the creation of inclusive and diverse communities that we all can benefit from. I can’t wait to learn more about housing, transport, and land use issues and to contribute my skills to GGWash’s mission.

Beckett Neustad, Engagement Intern

Hello everyone! My name is Beckett. I am a Junior at School Without Walls High School in Foggy Bottom and I am very excited to join Greater Greater Washington as an engagement intern this spring.

I have been interested in urban planning since I was very young. I started biking to school when I was five and haven’t looked back! This led me to become interested in how we use the space in our city, with a particular focus on bike infrastructure. I quickly realized that the Washington DC region is geared toward prioritizing car ownership over other forms of transportation.

Over the years I’ve also become interested in the history of this region, delving into old maps and photos. This helped me understand that our city wasn’t always like this – that we’d actively made the choice to center our region around cars.

But we don’t have to.

My experiences biking have led me to believe in the importance of prioritizing pedestrians and creating safe infrastructure for all forms of transportation. I also believe in the importance of having a city that prioritizes reducing race and class inequalities through urban planning and land use.

I am interning at GGWash through a program at my school, the School Without Walls. In order to graduate, we are required to complete a semester-long internship of our choice. I knew that GGWash had hosted a Walls intern in the past and it seemed like the perfect place for me to explore my interests. I’m looking forward to working behind the scenes and sharing my perspective and experiences navigating DC as a high school student.

Invest in a greater future

Since 2020, GGWash’s internship program has made it possible for more than 14 emerging leaders to gain valuable experience in the urban planning/advocacy space. As part of our commitment to building a more equitable future, our internships are paid and focus on professional development. Unfortunately, changes to GGWash’s funding structure means our internship program is in jeopardy.

If you share our belief in the importance of inspiring and nurturing the next generation of leaders and have suggestions about people or places we could reach out to about funding, please reach out to kjentoftherr [at] ggwash.org. If you’d like to make a donation in support of our work, including our internship program, you can do that here.