Tejasvini Vijay
BS, Environmental Public Health
Hometown
Duvall, WA
Internship with
King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, River and Floodplain Management Section
Editor’s note: This summer, DEOHS students have been getting hands-on experience as interns with health agencies, nonprofits and private companies. In our occasional “On the Job” series, we feature some of their stories.
Tejasvini Vijay grew up in Washington's Snoqualmie Valley, where river floods during the rainy season threaten homes and businesses. This summer, she helped members of her community and beyond get prepared for flood season as an intern with the River and Floodplain Management Section of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks.
Tejasvini, who is in her third and final year as an environmental public health major at the UW, worked on the section’s communications team to get the word out in many different formats. She interviewed and filmed residents for a video about King County’s discount on flood insurance, designed social media posts about flood preparedness methods, and created postcards to let residents know that field workers from the team would be in their area.
“A lot of the people we’re doing outreach with are the people I have grown up with,” she said. “There is so much work that goes into making sure we have healthy ecosystems around us, and I think it’s really important that our communities are involved in that.”
Watershed explorations
Tejasvini was especially interested in getting out into the field during her internship, and her team gave her lots of opportunities to get her boots wet.
With King County basin planners, she visited neighborhoods that have experienced multiple flooding events. She also observed some of the team’s projects to reconfigure the Snoqualmie River to reduce the risk of flooding and erosion.
On one of the visits, she met a resident who shared how she had been helped by the county’s 40% discount on federal flood insurance in unincorporated King County.
“The only reason she was able to afford her home was because it was near a floodplain, and the only reason she was able to protect her home was because of that 40% discount. It put into perspective the value of the work that local government does,” Tejasvini said.
Farther south, in Kent, Tejasvini visited Van Doren’s Landing Park, where her team is collaborating with members of the Suquamish and Muckleshoot tribes to tell the story of the Green River watershed. She enjoyed hearing feedback on the project from Warren KingGeorge, a member of the Muckleshoot tribe, who is helping with the translation of the information on the signs into Lushootseed.
“Getting to sit down and hear directly from him about his family history was one of the coolest parts of the experience,” she said.
From community gardens to broadcast news
Tejasvini also met with teams at other King County agencies. At Public Health –Seattle King County, she listened in about a project to help community gardeners make sure that food grown in floodplains is safe to eat.
In the county’s stormwater division, she learned about work to reduce the impact of the tire derivative 6PPD-quinone on salmon. And with the Water and Land Resources Division science team, she learned about water quality testing at local beaches.
With her cohort of six interns at King County, she visited KING 5 News to hear about how local governments work to get their stories featured by reporters.
One program, many interests
Tejasvini was drawn to the UW because of the environmental public health major. Growing up with a passion for both health and environmental science, she expected she would have to double major to get the education she was looking for.
When she learned about the major, she remembers thinking, “Wow, this is one program that brings in all of my interests.”
In small, engaging classes, she has studied a broad array of topics including food safety, chemical and water safety, and occupational health. She has also formed strong bonds with faculty members and classmates.
“I’ve gotten so close with many of my professors, which is not something that a lot of people can say in their first couple of years at such a large school like UW,” she said. She has also taken advantage of individualized advising from DEOHS counselors Janet Hang and Dan Poux.
“DEOHS provides you with a small community in a big school and I’m so grateful that I have had the opportunity to be in a program I love so much,” she said.
