Inside a CERSA Internship with Bayer Crop Science

Each summer, NC State students have the opportunity to work with regulatory scientists in industry, government or nonprofits through CERSA’s internship program. For CERSA 2024 Summer Intern Rachel Tarkington, she was able to gain experience with Bayer Crop Science’s regulatory team.

For the majority of Rachel’s summer as a regulatory science intern, she was based remotely in North Carolina, where she learned more about how regulators make decisions from her mentors, regulatory analysts Greg Watson and Natasha Dixon. During the final weeks of her internship, she was able to visit Bayer’s headquarters for crop traits development and biotechnology in Chesterfield, Missouri. This experience broadened her perspective of regulatory affairs, and provided opportunities for networking and professional development.

Before her internship, Rachel had exposure to regulatory science from her courses with Dr. Keith Edmisten at NC State, which she found interesting. During her internship, she saw it in action: a fast-moving space where research, policy, and law overlap, and where building relationships is as important as analyzing data. She came to meetings prepared with questions, and those questions led to deeper conversations about how regulations take shape, how policies respond to shifting cultural attitudes, and how regulatory decisions in one country can ripple across global markets. “I learned so much from my mentors by taking a deep dive in agricultural regulatory policy and gaining a greater understanding for my future career,” she says.

A highlight of Rachel’s internship was her final project, where she conducted regulatory analysis of the New Pesticide Spray Drift Protection Plan proposed by the EPA. She used the EPA’s documents on volatilization risk, new active ingredient reviews, human-health and residential exposure assessments, spray-drift modeling, and related scientific advisory findings. The analysis she completed drew on the knowledge she gained during her internship and the critical-thinking skills essential for agricultural regulatory specialists. An observation she took from her final project was that regulatory work is about more than just interpreting rules–it’s also involves looking ahead and evolving to change and ensuring that both science and legal structures work in tandem for innovation. “I have learned that it is important to understand this relationship in order to have a successful career in regulatory science.” Rachel says, “both [science and the legal landscape] are considerable factors in new regulatory decisions.”

Throughout her internship, Rachel saw first-hand how regulatory affairs tackles new challenges in crop science. She enjoyed the work, the people she met, and the chance to see the process up close. She highly recommends this program to other students interested in regulatory science. After graduating from NC State’s Department of Crop and Soil Science in Spring 2025 Rachel is now a Field Crops Extension Agent in Lenoir County, NC.