Meet Endurance Laryea – Summer Pathogens Program Intern!
Endurance is a senior at Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey—New Brunswick, majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. This summer, she wanted to be involved in public service and community engagement which led her to apply for the 2026 Rutgers Scarlet Service Internship Program. Even though she did not know which organization she would end up interning with, she knew she wanted to do something that would require her to apply the knowledge she acquired in her coursework out on the field. After a rigorous interview process with five non-profit organizations, she matched with the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership!
With the LRWP she serves as a Pathogens Monitoring and Communications Intern, where she works with volunteers to collect hydrological samples and record hydrological field data. Under the supervision of Dr. John Meyer, Endurance is also in charge of writing weekly blog posts that include results from the Interstate Environmental Commission (IEC) lab analysis of the water samples and a narrative of the pathogens monitoring sessions. Additionally, she works together with the LRWP team and its volunteers of diverse backgrounds in coming up with possible solutions to tackle water quality and environmental safety issues to improve the health of the communities that surround the Lower Raritan.
We asked Endurance what she has learned through her internship:
“I have developed strong communication across lingual bridges, refined written and spoken science communication and have strengthened leadership, organizations and teamwork skills!”
Endurance shared that she is passionate about medicine and using scientific insights to enhance community wellbeing and says her work with LRWP has offered an early, hands-on glimpse into what community-engaged science looks like in practice.
You can read Endurance’s journal entries about her pathogens monitoring experiences here:
