Fifth American Arctic Connection Intern joins the International Secretariat in Rovaniemi
Mia Filardi, who is serving as the fifth American Arctic Connection Intern at UArctic, has arrived in Rovaniemi and begun her work at the International Secretariat. She will be in this role from February to the end of June, 2026.
Mia Filardi is serving as the fifth American Arctic Connection Intern from February to June, 2026. This internship is made possible through a collaboration between the US Embassy in Helsinki, the University of Lapland and the UArctic International Secretariat. Now in its third year, this internship was designed to facilitate bilateral communications and connections between the US and Finland in the field of Arctic relations.
Mia received a Fulbright scholarship to complete her master’s degree in Peace, Mediation, and Conflict studies at Tampere University, where she is currently writing her thesis about the use of sports as a way to promote everyday peace between immigrant groups and local Finns. She completed her bachelor’s degree in international studies and Finnish Language and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she also took several classes in the Arctic Studies program. Mia was also an AFS exchange student in Joensuu, Finland in 2018, where she began her journey of learning Finnish.
Throughout her studies, Mia has also worked as an executive assistant at the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies as well as Finlandia Foundation National, which have given her a solid foundation in Nordic and Arctic relations and have allowed her to develop skills such as conference and event planning, communications, and organizational management.
Growing up in both Southern California and Boston, Mia began playing ice hockey as a child, which led her family to host Finnish hockey players in their home and gave her her first introduction to Finnish culture and way of life. Now nearly fluent in Finnish, Mia works as a head coach with the Tampere Ilves youth ice hockey program and plays on the KooVee women’s team in her spare time. She hopes to continue to coach and play during her time in Rovaniemi.
During her time as AAC intern, Mia will be focused on the planning of upcoming UArctic events, as well as coordinating events for Americans at ULapland, and serving as the liaison between the US Embassy and UArctic. She is also excited to visit local high schools to present about the US and to serve as a general point of contact for all things US-related at ULapland and in Rovaniemi as a whole.