How I Got the Job: World Resources Institute Internship

Hanyu Liu, Master of Environmental Science Policy (MSESP) Class of 2020, writes about how she found her summer internship developing sustainable investing initiatives at the World Resources Institute.

My name is Hanyu Liu and I am passionate about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) finance, impact investing, and other forms of sustainable finance. I am eager to learn more about environment and climate change so that I can integrate sustainability into financial practices in order to make the most valuable social impact.

Last summer, I had a rewarding internship with World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. I worked in their finance center to develop sustainable investing initiatives, and I was also involved in two climate-related projects that were closely related to my studies.

The Physical Climate Risk Project aimed to help companies and financial institutions better measure their exposure to physical risks from climate change. I conducted research and created a map to list out all climate risks within 79 industries from existing disclosure and reporting frameworks. The map I created provided an understanding of how the physical risks of climate change are currently addressed and will serve as a baseline to explore the most pressing gaps in risk management and ways to improve them.

I also joined the Sustainable Finance Commitment Project, which used an in-house assessment framework to present banks’ commitments to sustainability—in plain, contextualized terms. I searched data for 23 private banks, categorized their sustainability commitments into climate and social sectors, and summarized their financial services. Then, I evaluated the effectiveness of their sustainability commitments across nine indicators in terms of specificity, accountability, and magnitude.

Thanks to the quantitative knowledge I learned in the core courses, I was more comfortable with collecting and analyzing climate-related data as I conducted research on the literature. The policy memos I wrote in Analytical Politics and Microeconomics also proved helpful for translating and contextualizing the data I pulled for ongoing reports and blog posts during my internship.

Harris not only equipped me with the skills to succeed in my internship, but also connected me with the opportunity.

I learned about the World Resources Institute internship through Harrislink, an internal platform for Harris students and alumni to explore job and internship opportunities. My internship also was posted specifically for Harris students, which I think greatly increased my chances of being selected. And, since it was a partnership program between World Resources Institute and Harris, the interview process was streamlined into a test and a phone interview. I applied on HarrisLink in late January and was selected by early March, which gave me time to prepare for summer travel.

The Career Development Office (CDO) helped me throughout my entire application and internship process, and I received a stipend from CDO to support my living expenses in D.C. I am especially grateful to my career coach, Alejandro Monroy-Velez, who helped me prepare for all facets of the interview process, from writing an effective cover letter to negotiating wages. I will definitely work with CDO when I prepare for full-time job applications, and this internship made my career goals feel much more tangible.

Overall, my experience with World Resources Institute laid a solid foundation for my understanding of sustainable finance and inspired me to consider a career in climate risk management to bring sustainable finance to the next level.