PSR Welcomes our Summer NWA Interns to DC June 21, 2024

PSR’s NWA Program is excited to welcome two new interns this summer, Ethan Schmidt and Michaela Soucy. Part of The Washington Center program, they will be working with us from DC supporting the work of nuclear weapons abolition through the maintenance of our annual Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Calendar, and their individual projects addressing injustice.

Michaela Soucy is a Junior at Quinnipiac University majoring in Law and Society, and she is on a pre-law track. Studying law and its effects on society has expanded her interest in advocacy work. Michaela believes that a big part of getting laws changed is to change public perception. Michaela applied to PSR because of the commitment this organization has in preventing the further catastrophic effects of nuclear warfare. From mining, to testing, to detonation, nuclear weapons pose a clear humanitarian crisis. The work that PSR does to advocate for disarmament within the medical community was important to her and is the reason she chose to apply to PSR’s NWA program.

Michaela’s research is focused on her desire to advocate for the underrepresented. She wants to bring light to the communities that have been most affected by America’s manufacturing and testing of nuclear warheads. It is her belief that the human cost of nuclear weapons is palpable. And so far, the American government has been ineffective in properly compensating the citizens who have been harmed the most.

Ethan Schmidt is a journalism major at Middle Tennessee State University, set to graduate in December. Understanding the importance of developing journalists to hone their research skills, he applied for the internship to gain more experience with performing in-depth research on critical issues like nuclear weapons abolition.

They will be researching the influence of the ICBM lobby in Congress, while helping to assemble an online calendar that tracks all of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki memorial events happening across the country in August. He’s excited to get to work on these projects and connect with experts on nuclear weapons disarmament this summer.