Contact Information
Host Organisation
IFSA Region: Southern Europe
City/Region/Country: Austria
Institution: Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald (BFW)
International intern accepted?: YES

Intern
Name: Charlotte Virgillito
IFSA LC: IFSA France (Nancy)
Contact: c.virgillito6@gmail.com

INTERSHIP at Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald (BFW)

Hi IFSA members!

I’m Charlotte and I’m from Switzerland. I’m currently doing my master’s degree in France in Nancy at the university of Lorraine. My major is “forests and their environment (FEN)”. To validate our degree we have a mandatory internship of at least 5 months to do. I applied spontaneously to the BFW (Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald) in Vienna in September 2020 and began my internship in February 2021. So, if you’re interested don’t hesitate to contact them. They are all really nice!

I did my internship under the supervision of Dr. Silvio Schüler. I directly applied to him as he’s the head of the Forest Growth, Silviculture and Genetics department. But there are other departments you could be interested in. I could choose which project I was interested in working on. I worked on a project on riparian forest threats and management that was included in the Refocus program (http://www.interreg-danube.eu/approved-projects/refocus). This was a good opportunity because I could work with people from different departments in the institution and from other countries. 

My first work was to create a database from the field data collected in 2018-2019. The goal was to write some papers with the data. Then, I was tasked to do some statistical models with  R software. I was teamed with Maarten De Groot from the Slovenian Forest Institute for the modelling. I was able to learn a lot from him. We worked remotely by skype. I also worked on a database for another paper on Deadwood. 

It was really nice because I was included in the making of the paper from the beginning to the end. I participated in all the meetings to discuss the paper and was asked to give my opinions. I’m also credited as co-author and I think it’s great to be recognised for the work I provided. I felt like I was a colleague and not just an intern. 

I had the chance to participate in the last Refocus project stakeholder meeting. It was interesting to see all the results that were produced by the project. I also went to the field to plant saplings (picture) to help another project. 

They also gave me enough free time to write my master’s thesis and I was allowed to use a part of the results. Silvio was kind enough to review it and helped me improve it a lot. All the team was always available whenever I had questions or needed help. 

I had a really good time at the BFW. I was able to learn and experience how it is to work in the research field. Everyone was really nice and I enjoyed my internship and my stay in Vienna. Vienna is an awesome city with a lot to do and lots of fellow students to meet. If someone wants to do an internship at BFW I’d recommend it. You can contact me if you have any questions.