A Q&A with our 2025 Summer Interns

October 14, 2025

This summer, The Lab @ DC welcomed three graduate student research assistant interns to support our ongoing projects. We asked them to chat together about their internship experience at The Lab, which involved full-time, in-person work for 10-12 weeks.  

Josh Varcie is a Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) student at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. 

Belan Antensaye is also a Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) student at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. 

Collin Crane is a joint degree JD/MPP student at the Georgetown Law School and the McCourt School of Public Policy. 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Josh: For starters, tell me a bit about your backgrounds. 

Belan:  

At the start of my career, I focused on community and economic development, racial equity, and public health in local government. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I became involved in designing equitable strategies for testing and vaccination in the City of Burlington, Vermont. Broadly, I’m interested in the intersection between public health, housing, public infrastructure, and transportation, and making residents’ lives better at the local level.  

Collin:  

Before coming to The Lab, I spent eight years as an Army officer. I joined the Army because I wanted to contribute to society and help make our community stronger. Transitioning to public policy has allowed me to continue that work while doing something that’s more compassionate and a bit closer to home.  

Josh: Why did you decide to work at The Lab?  

Belan:  

When I was searching for a summer internship, I knew I wanted to work at a place where I could use creativity to develop innovative solutions to government challenges and community problems.  During my search, a classmate connected me to the team at The Lab. After meeting with a staff member on The Lab’s Civic Design team about the opportunity, it became clear that The Lab was doing the type of work I love. 

Collin:  

The Lab’s Director came to speak in my Public Management class at Georgetown. They shared that the mission of The Lab was to improve policy outcomes for DC residents and spoke about the wide variety of social science and civic design tools that The Lab uses to meet this goal. I was particularly excited about the opportunity to work across several District Government agencies and to interact closely with DC residents.  

Josh: What does your day-to-day life look like as a research assistant at The Lab?  

Belan:  

Every day is different. I work with multiple agencies, and it’s been fun to work both at The Lab office and visit partners at their offices. We also went on a couple of field trips, including to the DC Metropolitan Police Academy and to the District Department of Transportation sign shop, where they make the road signs you see all over the District. On the days I’ve been in The Lab’s office, I’ve spent my time meeting with agency stakeholders, redesigning forms to make them more user-friendly, and working on statistical coding exercises in R. 

Collin:  

Like Belan, I haven’t had too many days that are routine. Most of my time in the office has been spent working on coding tasks, such as cleaning data and analyzing it in R. I’ve also conducted literature reviews and helped with general research tasks, like inventorying the range of public-facing programs offered by DC Government. The Lab also brings in guest speakers, and I’ve enjoyed connecting with them and other colleagues across District Government. I even got to shadow a class on crime scene investigations, which was super interesting.   

Josh: What project are you most proud of from your time at The Lab? 

Belan:  

I got to work on a project with the Department of Human Services where we redesigned the form residents use to apply for housing subsidies. People in need of housing subsidies often face plenty of other stressors, and a tedious form only adds to that stress. This project was really rewarding because it helped make it tangibly easier for residents to get the assistance they need. 

Collin:  

One project I’ve enjoyed working on is the Fire Risk Dashboard. We’re using a predictive model to design an online dashboard for fire inspectors to help prioritize the buildings they inspect. As part of the project, I got to spend a day riding along with a fire inspector and see how he inspects buildings for fire risks. It was cool to see the actual touchpoint between the government and the people it serves.  

Josh: What's something you expected coming into this position that turned out differently? 

Belan:  

I was pleasantly surprised about how easy it was to integrate into The Lab, both socially and professionally. The team did a great job of giving us projects right away so we could hit the ground running. They also went out of their way to make sure that the research assistants felt like they were part of The Lab’s culture and that we were contributing meaningful work to the team.   

Collin:  

As an intern, you sometimes end up doing a lot of thankless tasks. But the team at The Lab was invested in giving us projects that matter and very willing to help us learn and grow. Whether it was coding alongside me at my desk, bringing in guest speakers, or sharing training resources, I’m grateful for the opportunities I had to learn for learning’s sake at The Lab.   

 Josh: What was your favorite "small win" during your time at The Lab? 

Belan:  

In July, The Lab hosted a press event to share our work on the income-based fines pilot. I created a mock traffic ticket for that session so journalists could tangibly envision how the program works. It was rewarding to work behind-the-scenes on putting this event together and to see how something I designed ended up on the nightly news. 

 Collin:  

Coming into this summer, I hadn’t done a lot of spatial analysis in R. But through my projects, I learned how to spatially join data in R. This data analysis was only one small step in the process, but it was really rewarding to see my coding abilities grow.   

Josh: What advice would you give to someone just starting at The Lab?  

 Belan:  

Talk to as many people as you can while you’re here. Everyone at The Lab is really dedicated to helping research assistants take the next step in their careers. It was super useful to have colleagues who were invested in my growth and who could connect me with folks across District Government and beyond.   

 Collin:  

My biggest piece of advice is to push yourself out of your professional comfort zone. If you come to The Lab with curiosity and humility, the incredible experience and intelligence of everyone here will give you the confidence to learn and grow.  The Lab is a great place to learn about local government, which is a career path that’s definitely worth exploring. 

Josh: What will you take away from your time at The Lab as you prepare for the next steps in your career?  

Belan:  

Something I’ll take with me is the civic design principles that we employed at The Lab. It’s easy to say in the abstract that a government form or tool should be designed as clearly as possible, but it’s hard to really know what that means until you go through it step-by-step. With resident-centered design, you’re focused on simplicity and ease, ensuring that resident needs and natural behaviors are central to your decision making. At The Lab, I learned the actual strategies that underpin that process.   

Collin:  

I’ll take away an appreciation for how much is done at the local level. I have so much more empathy for first responders than I did coming into this role because of the time I spent with them. The vast majority of people in local government care a lot about their jobs and devote their careers to making DC better.  

 Josh: What’s your favorite thing about DC in the summer? 

Belan:  

I’ve really enjoyed all the activities and events in DC during the summer. I got to watch an outdoor movie on the big screen at the Kennedy Center and listen to jazz in the garden at the National Gallery of Art. Plus, there’s something special about being here for the Fourth of July and watching the fireworks on the National Mall.  

Collin:  

If you walk to the National Mall on any given weekend, there’s going to be something happening. And every weekend is widely different from the last. I feel like I’ve gotten to encounter so many new and interesting people and things in DC, both personally and professionally.  

Josh: Thanks to Belan and Collin for sharing their experiences from this summer at The Lab. One thing I’d add is that The Lab did a great job aligning my projects with my career goals. I’m interested in becoming a data analyst and wanted to strengthen my skills in spatial analysis. Over the summer, I had the chance to work with parking and resident relocation data, and to learn from colleagues who work with data every day.  

I think I speak for all of us when I say that working at The Lab was a meaningful and rewarding experience. We'd absolutely recommend The Lab to any student who wants to help make local government work better. 

If you’re interested in applying for a research assistant internship position at The Lab or another District agency, consider applying to the District Leadership Program or to a University-sponsored stipend program for graduate students. As of Fall 2025, we’re not actively hiring new interns, but a great way to stay in the loop about announcements is to join our email list or follow us on LinkedIn.