One student’s remotely exciting internship

By Aurora Ferreira 

Isabella Kessimian’s commute to her internship at Brown University is very short – she  

doesn’t even have to leave the Stonehill campus. 

Her internship at Providence College is entirely remote, and the work she is analyzing  

was done via Zoom. 

“It’s very different than a typical internship because it is all remote, and the study itself was conducted through Zoom,” Kessimian said. 

She works in Dr. Lindsay Orchowski’s lab, AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resilience through Engagement), which is currently focused on testing a prevention program to reduce alcohol misuse and sexual victimization in sexual assault survivors. She is responsible for several tasks, including transcribing interviews, finding sources for literature reviews, and working with AWARE’s sister lab, REACH, which focuses on helping LGBTQ+ women. 

“The coolest thing they let me do was use the AWARE data and norms to complete my own independent research, which I will get to present at the Brown Mind Brain Research Day next month. I’ve been working on that since last semester. I came up with my own research question, I did the literature review myself, and one of the study’s research assistants helped me with the data since I’m not allowed to see the numbers.” 

Kessimian admits that a major reason she chose to go to Stonehill was the opportunities available to students in the psychology department. Her main interests are with the Psychology department’s Advanced Research Externship, an opportunity for Psychology Majors to gain hands-on research experience over the course of an entire academic year, traveling to another Campus, such as Brown or Harvard University, and working in a lab. 

“Towards the end of my sophomore year, I reached out to Professor (Erin) O’ Hea, and I asked her about the Externship program. She said that it would not be running the 2025-2026 academic year, but then she followed up, saying ‘Here are some researchers that you could do an internship with. Take a look at them and see if any of their work interests you, and then we could connect you,’” said Kessimian. 

Kessimian said she encourages others to seek out similar opportunities. 

“If there’s something you want to do, reach out, and they will help you,” Kessimian said