Meet Jordan Stock, a Master’s student from Stanford University, as she shares her experience with the Nature and Sustainable Food Systems team as an a student intern at IEEP.
If my grandpa could see me now, he would be proud. I come from a family of Midwestern farmers, and my roots have somehow ended up in Brussels for the summer, analyzing EU agricultural policy!
I’m Jordan, a rising Master’s student in public policy at Stanford University (where I also completed a B.S. in Earth Systems). Over the years, my work has revolved around environmental and agricultural policy across various levels, from investigating the sustainability of California’s agriculture and dairy to lobbying in D.C. for clean water funding to exploring policy opportunities to expand sustainable finance across Latin America and the Caribbean. However, what my previous academic and work experiences did not give me was deep insight into Europe’s environmental policy, which is why I applied and was lucky to be selected to join IEEP through a recurring collaboration between the think tank and Stanford’s Europe Center.
Over the past 8 weeks, I split my time between working on with the Nature and Sustainable Food Systems and the Strategic Partnership teams. With the former, I conducted a literature review on regenerative agriculture in the EU: more specifically, I was looking at both private investment strategies and public policy (more specifically, the CAP and its related policy instruments) that support the transition to regenerative agriculture. As a part of this research, I conducted a parallel analysis of the public policy and private sector landscape around regenerative agriculture in the U.S. to see what could be learned through the comparison of the U.S. and EU. You can read more about my findings in my other IEEP blog post! When I wasn’t working on regenerative agriculture research, I spent my time compiling and streamlining IEEP’s past 5 years of projects into one standardized document for ease of internal use and reference. It ended up being close to 300 projects! This work allowed me to interact with people across all teams, learn about the various projects IEEP has done over the years, and better understand how think tanks work internally.
Beyond my work projects, I also really enjoyed and learned from being part of the IEEP community. Everybody has such a unique background, both career-wise and culturally, which made every day a learning experience and super interesting! I will always remember the lunches and post-work drinks, where we would share and listen to other’s stories and life experiences. Even beyond IEEP, working in Norrsken House Brussels, a sustainability-centered co-working space, allowed me to meet people across organizations doing other exciting and impact work. In fact, the club that I’ve run for the past 2 years at university, Stanford’s Alt. Protein Project, is organized and funded by the Good Food Institite, a non-profit think tank which has an office on the same floor as IEEP!
Even though my time at IEEP was short, I learned valuable lessons that I will bring back with me to the U.S. and that will guide my future work. This time also made me fall in love with Belgium, and I hope to return some day!
Thank you to everyone at IEEP: y’all made me feel so welcomed, starting on day 1! But, I have to give a special thanks to my supervisors Melanie Muro and Mattia Bonfanti and a shoutout to my fellow interns Isabela Snow, Greta Holle, and Lena González, with whom I spent practically every lunch and explored Brussels and beyond on the weekends!
IEEP believes in supporting the policymakers and environmental experts of tomorrow. As part of our educational mandate, IEEP is happy to host students in partnership with their Universities as part of their programmes. If you would like to find out more, contact us at brussels@ieep.eu
