Meet Our Interns

 
Armenoush Aslanian-Persico is a student at the City College of New York, where she is pursuing a Civil Engineering degree. She recently joined the Lab in January 2010 and will be tasked with condensing building course materials to make the content accessible and applicable for the general public. She will also be part of the preparation team for the Building Performance Stakeholder Consortium. In addition to her duties at the Lab, Armenoush will intern at with the NYC Building Performance website project, a joint Newman Real Estate Institute-Lab project that is funded in part by the EPA Region 2. She will design and write content for the website and help organize Advisory Panel meetings.

Daycia Bowman is an Environmental Engineering student at the City College of New York. She joined the Lab in fall 2009 and is interning with Alice Cook, Director of Sustainability at Times Equities, Inc, through the 2009-2010 academic year. She describes herself as a self-motivated student with a range of experience including Computer Network Design and environmental engineering projects. Her tasks will include working on Time Equities’ ongoing building benchmarking project.

 

Brian Cruey is an MBA candidate in Baruch's Full Time Honors Program at the Zicklin School of Business.  In 2009, he worked with Marlon Harewood to perform data analysis on the NYC school system's energy consumption, a step towards reaching the energy goals set by Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. In spring 2010, he will continue and expand data analysis using the EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager, an online tool for performance measurement and data-mining in large datasets that helps users understand patterns and drivers of performance. These tools are cutting-edge business analysis processes, so this should be a valuable experiential complement to his MBA studies.

 

Daniel Egan is a Baruch College MBA student with a concentration in Real Estate and Finance. He joined the Lab in fall of 2009 and is interning with Vornado Realty Trust, an organization that has long been a part of our Stakeholder Consortium, through the 2009-2010 academic year. Daniel will be working with Suki Paciorek, Vornado’s Energy & Sustainability Program Director. His duties will include learning about the company’s new Energy Information Portal system, helping educate tenants about the system, and creating case studies of adoption of the system. He brings with him skills in benchmarking and property management. Under the leadership of Vornado’s team, Daniel will hopefully be exposed to various aspects of real estate investment and management.

 

Christopher Gioulis joined the Lab in spring of 2007 and teamed up with fellow former Lab intern, Ian Taylor, on the CUNY wireless metering project while studying for an Associate's Degree in Environmental Control Technologies at New York City College of Technology.  Upon graduation, he enrolled in a Bachelor's program in Facilities Management.  In a second assignment from the Lab, Chris learned to use the EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager Tool as an on-site intern with Time Equities along with fellow Lab intern Valery Previl.

 

Alexandra Gubareva is a first-year MBA candidate at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College.  In spring 2009, she interned with the New York City Department of Corrections, helping the department to achieve its long-term energy efficiency objectives (specifically a 30% reduction of energy consumption by 2017).  Alexandra assisted in energy data collection and analysis, financial analysis of energy saving projects, and researched to help the department create an effective energy reduction plan.

Marlon Harewood is a City Tech student working towards an Associate Degree in Applied Sciences. Marlon said his interest in pursuing a career in building operations stemmed from its growth potential and opportunities for advancement.  At the urging of Robert Polchinski, Marlon applied to the Lab internship program and joined us during the fall of 2007 through the spring of 2009.  Under the guidance of Ian Taylor, he monitored data on CUNY’s energy use.

Renad Jabaji is an MBA student at Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business Real Estate program. Like Daniel, she has a strong interest in learning about the property management field and also has a background in architecture. Her goal after completing her Master’s Degree is to work as a property or asset manager. She too joined the Lab in fall 2009 and will be working under the guidance of Suki Paciorek, Vornado’s Energy & Sustainability Program Director through the 2009-2010 academic year. She will learn about the company’s new Energy Information Portal system, help educate tenants about the system, create case studies of adoption of the system, and complete other assignments with the Energy & Sustainability Program team.

Vanessa Joseph is studying for an Architectural Technology degree at City Tech.  She began working in the Lab during fall of 2009 as a program assistant and will continue through the 2009-2010 academic year. Her major responsibility in fall of 2009 was to convene the Green Property Management Working Group, a subcommittee of the Building Performance Stakeholder Consortium. In spring of 2010, some of her duties will include helping to design and draft the Local 94 Training Center using CAD facilities at City Tech and doing some field work at Local 94. This opportunity should provide Vanessa with insights into advanced “smart building” control systems and the role they can play in helping to make buildings more sustainable.

 

Daniella Leifer is pursuing an MBA at Baruch.  She first became interested in sustainability issues as a Cornell undergraduate student.  She is a member of Net Impact, a network of business students interested in using business to further sustainable practices.  With the guidance of Michael Bobker, Daniella worked on a research project for CUNY’s central office, looking at opportunities for university-wide energy savings and improvements.  She is now working as an intern at Sustainable South Bronx, helping to implement their new green jobs training program. For the spring of 2010 semester, Daniella will be tasked with leading the design and implementation of the City College of New York Equipment Inventory Survey, a joint project of the Lab and the CCNY Office of Facilities & Campus Planning, under the guidance of Lab Mentor Peter Weisner. 

 

 

Amy Leon is a senior at City College who joined the Lab in fall 2009. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Earth System Science & Environmental Engineering. Teaming up with the Lab intern Daniella Leifer, Amy will perform research on indoor environmental quality at Baruch College through the 2009-2010 adcademic year.  Her assignments will include helping to design the research agenda, doing field work, compiling notes and data, and analyzing results.  She is a welcomed addition to our intern team.

 

Wendy Mendez is currently a student at City College. She recently joined the Lab in February of 2009 and will be interning with Sustainable South Bronx’s Smart Roofs program taking over the responsibilities held by former Lab intern Anna O'Brien. Similar to Anna, Wendy's responsibilities will include designing green roofs in AutoCAD, making site visits, and performing other job-related tasks. 

 

Ryan North is a graduate student working toward his MBA in Finance with a concentration in Real Estate at Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business. Ryan joined us in the fall of 2009 and has the unique opportunity of preparing a research paper on behalf of the Stimulus Funding Advisory Panel of the Building Performance Lab, a group derived from our Stakeholder Consortium, through the 2009-2010 academic year. The report will examine retrofit financing models as well as stimulus funding and will be presented to the Working Group and the Stakeholder Consortium this fall.

Anna O’Brien is a former intern from the New York City College of Technology, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Architectural Technology. In fall 2009, she interned at Sustainable South Bronx’s Smart Roofs program. Using her skills, she helped design green roofs through AutoCAD, made site visits, and performed other necessary tasks.

 

 

Jose Pillich became interested in carbon trading and corporate accounting while pursuing a postgraduate degree in Urban Studies at Hunter College.  He was hired as a research intern by the Lab during the spring of 2008 to create “Carbon 101: A Guide for Property Managers,” a paper requested by the Lab’s Stakeholder Consortium.

 

 

Valery Previl is a student in the Environmental Control Technologies department of City Tech. During the fall of 2007, Valery began his internship assignment in the field, working for NYSERDA under the guidance of Lou Rougalo.  His second assignment during the spring of 2008 was partnering with fellow Lab intern Chris Gioulis at Time Equities. Since the fall of 2008, he has been interning at Bright Power working on their program to reduce energy use in multifamily homes under the NYSERDA NPP Program. Valery performs energy audits and designs energy reduction plans and energy models. We are very pleased with his exposure to various aspects of energy data management, equipment and facility assessment, including both office and field work and energy modeling, and feel that it is starting him down an excellent career path.

  

 

Celine Ruben-Salama was a first-year student at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch when she joined the Lab in the fall of 2008 to work on a NYSERDA research project on greenhouse gas cost abatement curves, a method of comparing the cost of emission-reduction measures to their projected results. Like fellow Lab intern, Daniella Leifer, Celine is a member of Net Impact.  She holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration in Environmental Policy from Columbia University.

Raman Singh is a City College Mechanical Engineering student that has interned at Time Equities, a leading property management firm, during the spring of 2009. Under the guidance of Alice Cook, Director of Sustainability, he helped to prepare a tutorial on LEED Accredited Professional credits for a group of Time Equities property managers. Raman also learned how to use the Energy Star Portfolio Manager to assist the firm in its energy benchmarking project.

 

Ian Taylor completed his final semester in fall 2009 earning a degree in Environmental Control Technologies and Information Management from City Tech. During fall of 2009 Ian began a Lab internship with CUNY’s Office of Facilities Planning Construction and Management. Upon graduation, he took a job at that office, where he is part of the team working to meet CUNY’s targets for reduced energy use, and he mentored Lab intern Marlon Harewood.   

 

Zachary Wasserman is a Mechanical Engineering student in his junior year at the City College of New York. He joined the lab in April of 2009 as the assistant coordinator of CCNY Green; a campus-wide commitment to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainability in the day-to-day activities of the university. He's working on lowering the campus' greenhouse gas emission. He's also the Engineering Senator of the Undergraduate Student Government, Change at City (CAC), where he's working to incorporate CCNY Green into the student body. His primary task for the fall 2010 academic semester is to coordinate the activities of the CCNY Sustainability Initiative Working Groups.