Karina Lea

- Learned to identify and differentiate the six main varieties of tea through smell, sight, and taste alone

- Developed a working knowledge of tea as a cultural practice, tea as wellness, and tea as industry

- Became familiar with gong-fu style tea service, and answered questions from teahouse guests in regards to practice, brewing techniques, and history of gong-fu style tea service

- Developed a warm and approachable customer service persona while also learning how to set boundaries with customers

- Collaborating with other interns to develop outreach strategies connecting rural Tenryu Village to urban Japan, share the charm and appeal of the village to attract tourists and future residents

- Worked across a variety of volunteer positions such as teaching English to Japanese school children, creating decorations for a festival, and illustrating for a creative project

- Presented to a conference of native Japanese speakers in Japanese about progress, reflections on group experiences, and ideas for future development

- Organized and archived over ten years of backlogged auction catalogues and donations from patrons of the museum in under a month

- Created a database of museum journal and magazine subscriptions

- Met with employees at MIA across many different disciplines, such as data science, advertising, HR, curation, and management, to gain insight on their expertise and the future of the GLAM industry

- Digitized materials for archival purposes, including a 300 page rare book on request from a museum donor