Dana Kittrelle, age 21
Companies: Los Angeles & San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council; Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
Location: Los Angeles, Calif.
Calculating the economic value of natural resources is Dana Kittrelle's passion. And lucky for her, an environmental economics professor of hers at Pomona College pointed her in the direction of not one, but two perfect internships.
For the Los Angeles & San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council, Kittrelle heads three days a week to the riverside, where she collects data about how people use the rivers and how far they travel to visit them.
She works the rest of the week for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, a nonprofit that is helping L.A. city officials arrive at hard numbers to justify protecting the city's oak woodlands, which are not only essential to the local ecosystem but also increase property values. Kittrelle, for her part, works for free.
NEXT: Akhila Kolisetty, age 20
