Key Takeaways from the OASIS 2025 Summer Symposium
The Oregon Applied Sustainability Internship (OASIS) program held its highly anticipated Summer Symposium recently, where eight talented interns delivered presentations showcasing their projects aimed at enhancing sustainability for Oregon businesses. You can hear directly from the interns in this 2025 OASIS program video.
With funding from the EPA’s Pollution Prevention (P2) grant, the program is administered through Oregon Sea Grant and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). OASIS pairs interns with businesses in Oregon to achieve pollution prevention goals while offering students hands-on experience. The EPA grant helps offset program costs and intern stipends.
Over an intensive 11-week period, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students from universities across Oregon including, the Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Southern Oregon University, Linfield University and Lewis and Clark College, participated in the paid internship program. The interns worked for both small and large businesses in the state’s food and beverage industry. They showcased a variety of practical projects, each designed to make a real difference in pollution prevention and resource efficiency.
Here are some highlights from their impactful work this year:
Comprehensive Water Mapping: Rohan Keenan designed a comprehensive water mapping project aimed at improving operational efficiency and creating a model that can reduce water usage across multiple plants.
Energy Optimization for Small Manufacturers: Robyn Henry and Carlos A. Rodate provided technical assistance and developed training materials for small food and beverage manufacturers like coffee roasters, bakeries, grocery stores and breweries to optimize refrigeration systems to reduce energy costs.
Path to B-Corp Certification: Camiron Coco supported a local creamery in pursuing B-Corp Certification by implementing waste audits, enhancing data management practices and suggesting water efficiency equipment.
Life Cycle Assessment for Organic Soil Amendments: Sage Harris collected data for a Life Cycle Assessment analysis to identify strategies that eliminating byproducts generated during the production of organic soil amendments from black fly larvae.
Reusable Wine Bottle Programs: Abigail Williams worked for a startup aiming to introduce reusable wine bottle programs to wineries; researching methods to reduce toxic chemicals in the bottle-washing process and conducting outreach to attract new customers.
Energy Efficiency: Gillian Rutten recommended a strategy to replace outdated heaters with electric or propane units in a garden greenhouse, boosting overall energy efficiency. An additional recommendation was to build a compost water heater to expand effluent water use.
Waste Reduction at a Local Co-op: Marina Thompson improved food and solid waste management at a local food co-op, emphasizing the value of reusable containers at the hot bar and deli while improving packaging and purchasing policies.
DEQ Senior Toxic Reduction Analyst and OASIS Program Administrator, Lisa Cox, is passionate about the program’s overarching mission and says, “through OASIS, we’ve been able to provide free technical assistance to many businesses across the state. Our goal is to help them achieve their environmental objectives while supporting pollution prevention solutions and environmental workforce development.”
Interns benefited from the guidance of mentors and industry professionals, including engineers, sustainability experts, and scientists. At the end of their internships, they proposed actionable solutions that companies could implement to tackle identified challenges.
Based on the interns’ recommendations, if implemented, businesses could potentially save the following amounts annually:
• 3,497 pounds of solid waste
• 2,669.785 metric tons of CO₂ emissions
• 1,320 pounds of hazardous waste
• 85,516 kilowatt hours of energy
• $287,649 in costs
• 7,720,000 gallons of water
Stay tuned for the next OASIS program.
By Yulia Shipulina, DEQ Pollution Prevention (P2) Program Coordinator