Meet GoFarm's 2025 Interns (Part 1)

GoFarm
Jul 14
4 min read

Please offer a warm welcome to our 2025 intern team when you see them around this season. We are so excited to have these folks on our team! Get to know them a bit better with some answers to fun questions below.

Meet Andrea

What’s your favorite animal? "My favorite animals are sharks, giraffes, and possums! I have loved sharks since I was a kid, I loved Shark Week. And one of the animals in our nativity scene that I grew up with is a giraffe, which I never realized till I got older. And possums cause they look like they are always screaming, and they are so weird and creepy looking and I just love them. I really want one, but I don't think my husband will go for that."

What’s your favorite book? "I love to read, so all books are my favorite! But I recently read The Serpent and The Rainbow by Wade Davis. It's about traveling to Haiti to investigate toxic plants and the mythology of Zombies. Absolutely riveting!"

What are you most passionate about? "I am most passionate about being of service to people. I want to find ways to help people access the things they need, especially those who don't typically get that access or support. I think the world would be a much better place if we all focused on how we can help others a little bit more."

"I grew up in Boulder, but am originally from a very small town called El Portal in the Yosemite River Valley in California. We moved out here when I was two. I recently moved back into the house I grew up in with my husband and our dog and two cats."

Meet Isil

Originally from the vibrant city of Istanbul, Türkiye, Isil is a chemist by training with nearly a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical sector. Driven by a deep passion for nature and environmental issues, she made a bold move—leaving her corporate job to explore sustainable living firsthand.

For almost three years, Isil traveled across South America, volunteering on farms and engaging with local communities. It was during this journey that she witnessed the pressing food and water challenges intensified by climate change. This eye-opening experience inspired her to take action.

Today, Isil is a graduate student at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, studying Global Environmental Sustainability. As a research assistant, her work centers on environmental justice, with a particular focus on equitable access to food and water. She believes in the transformative power of food systems in the fight against climate change and is passionate about creating sustainable solutions that prioritize people and the planet.

When she’s not studying or researching, you’ll find Isil swimming, hiking, or watching movies. One of her most unforgettable adventures? A five-day trek to Machu Picchu, challenging, breathtaking, and deeply rewarding.

Fun fact: She's a movie buff who loves exploring the aesthetics of film directors... and yes, Beetlejuice has a special place in her heart. Don’t ask why, it just does!

Meet Stevie

What’s the strangest talent you have? "I can whistle something fierce through my teeth, and I drop it every so often when people are least expecting it."

What superpower would you like to have? "For a superpower, I would love to just be able to print, generate or otherwise excrete delicious food spontaneously, whenever I wanted - kind of like the replicator in Star Trek. Then I would never have to worry about cooking or buying food ever again, and could just like, extrude abundance for those around me. Since I can't do that, I decided to become a farmer instead."

What are you most passionate about? "Right now, I'm feeling most passionate about continuing to learn and practice land management and food production through regenerative farming practices and education, so that I can put them to use on my family's ancestral land in New Mexico. That, and also raising class consciousness/educating myself and community about what the inefficiencies and excesses of our current economic system are, and how that translates into oppression, exploitation and rising inequality around the world and at home. So yea, just little things like that."

What is your cultural background? "On my dad's side, my family are white (Scottish and French) working class settlers, working in the steel mill and coal mines of the Pueblo/Trinidad area of southern Colorado, serving in the military, and even starting small businesses, in particular a music and waterbed store. They go back in Pueblo for at least 4 generations. On my mom's side, we are a mix of mostly Indigenous and Spanish ancestry, and have been living in the Taos area of Northern New Mexico for, in some cases, several generations and in others, countless generations. My family were subsistence farmers and shepherds, relying on the acequias, or irrigation ditches, to carry water from Taos mountain to irrigate their fields. After all these generations, my mom still has one acre north of Taos, with surface and ground water rights, that will be coming to her through my grandma Lourdes. One day I hope to live and work on that land, and bring the life giving water back to the fields where my grandfather's worked, and in some cases, where they also died."

Meet Olivia (Ollie)

What are you most passionate about? "I am most passionate about learning and the lifelong pursuit of knowledge."

What are your goals for the year? "To have a more intentional relationship with the earth. I want to understand the earth better and protect it."

What is something someone would never guess about you? "I’m interested in stand up comedy. I hope to start writing and performing material before the end of the year. I love making people laugh."