The GeekWire team is excited to introduce Gillian Dohrn, our first Etzioni Intern in Climate Tech Journalism.
Readers may have already noticed her byline on a story about the widespread thefts of EV charging cables in Seattle and the aggravating impact on area drivers, and another on plans for a climate tech co-working space, plus her earlier coverage of clean energy grants and funding for climate tech.
Dohrn grew up in Seattle and in June finished a master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). She also has a Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular biology with a minor in journalism from Colorado College.
An avowed outdoor enthusiast, Dohrn is happy skiing in the winter and riding her gravel bike — which is somewhere between a road bike and a mountain bike — the rest of the year. She also has a strong aquatic streak, swimming laps in pools and open water. “This past year I lived for ocean plunges in the early morning no matter the weather,” she said.
Dohrn likes tracking scientific discoveries, and is delighted by nature’s clever adaptations — including the very small ones.
“I was very excited this past year when researchers at UCSC discovered a nitrogen-fixing organelle in marine algae,” she said, noting that perhaps someday it could play a role in a climate technology.
Dohrn previously held internships reporting for Nature Portfolio, an umbrella organization including numerous prestigious scientific journals, and two California publications: the Monterey Herald and Stanford News Service.
The GeekWire climate internship runs for 12 weeks this summer and is made possible by a grant from Oren Etzioni, founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and head of the TrueMedia nonprofit, and his son Eli Etzioni, who works for Tradewater, a company trying to cut climate warming emissions.