CAPAL Intern Driven to Change Food Insecurity

Nichole Espineli is studying for her master's degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her determination, borne from her personal experience with food insecurity, led her to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) internship this past summer with the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Nichole's drive to improve food security stems from the personal experience of her family's heavy dependence on government food assistance.

Her work as an intern is about creating a hopeful future where no family faces the same challenges that she did. "I would walk past the food pantry when I was younger and see the same people, but the line continued to get longer," she said. "Shouldn't it be getting shorter? I wanted to change that."

During Nichole's internship, she contacted food outlets to gather information for upcoming focus groups and helped analyze transcripts from previous focus groups. The experience made her consider the possibility of federal employment.

"I never really saw myself working for the government before," she said. "But that changed when I saw how my team at USDA was thinking about new solutions and possibilities to make our food system more resilient." Programs like Feds Feed Families and Youth in Agriculture showcase a strong focus on inclusivity, initiatives Nichole found commendable. "Among the USDA agencies, Food and Nutrition Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have stood out to me as organizations I deeply admire and hope to work with one day," she said. "I'm inspired by their approach to addressing food and nutrition challenges with a systemic lens."

Nichole felt informed and motivated after seeing how USDA's broad mission focusing on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition and related issues connected with her goal of reducing food insecurity. "Through my internship, I really saw what the USDA is and what they can deliver, and how beneficial they are to the overall food system," she said.

Her advice to future CAPAL interns is to go in with an open mind about the opportunity. "Anyone and anything can be a teacher, and anywhere can be a classroom," she said.

To find out about this and other internship opportunities with USDA, visit our Youth in Agriculture web page and click Internship and Career Opportunities.