Undergraduate Summer Internship Program
Our team of scientists and educators at CONSERVE are facilitating the adoption of transformative on‐farm water treatment solutions that can enable the safe use of nontraditional irrigation water (e.g., advanced treated wastewater, return flows) on food crops. At the same time, our DAWN team is developing a decision support system that helps to increase land, nutrient, and water use efficiency in order to maximize crop production in maize, soy, and bioenergy fields. Our vision is to be a collective national resource bringing together research, outreach, and education to effectively reduce the nation’s food, energy and water challenges that are exacerbated by climate change.
With projects located throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, we are looking for undergraduate student summer interns to assist us in our research, extension and education efforts. We seek undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing higher degrees in the fields of agricultural and natural sciences, water utilization and conservation, public health, data analytics, economics, policy and law, environmental education and communications, and other related areas. A central goal of our program is to advance the participation of BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color), women and persons with disabilities in STEM fields relevant to the food, energy, water nexus. http://
The 10-week internship will start on June 6, 2022 and end on August 12, 2022. Interns will receive a stipend of $6,000. Additional funds for expenses (e.g., travel, lodging, per diem) are not provided. We are accepting applications from now until February 4, 2022.
The following CONSERVE and DAWN positions are available (for descriptions of the labs/groups that will be hosting these positions, please check out these websites
http://conservewaterforfood.
http://conservewaterforfood.
CONSERVE Summer Internship Positions
Location: University of Maryland (College Park)
Position Description (In-person preferred): As climate change continues to stress freshwater and cause more unpredictable precipitation, it is critical to identify sustainable irrigation approaches for agriculture to adapt to the changing climate. Rainwater harvesting can provide farmers and gardeners with additional water and reduce their reliance on costly municipal water. However, farmer concerns about water quality and system design and maintenance need to be addressed. The intern will have the opportunity to combine two approaches to increasing rainwater harvesting in local agriculture into one unique summer: 1) evaluating the microbial quality of harvested rainwater and 2) developing communication and outreach materials. Duties will include: collecting water samples from gardeners and farmers; filtering water samples and extracting DNA; entering data (water parameters, DNA concentrations, etc.); conducting preliminary data analysis; creating interview questions for promotional videos; and editing video footage. This unique position will allow the intern the opportunity to learn advanced microbiological techniques and develop skills in translating complex scientific information to a variety of audiences.
DAWN Summer Internship Positions
Location: University of Minnesota (Twin Cities)- 2 available positions
Position 1 Description (Virtual or In-person position): The student intern will work with Dr. Kenney, the DAWN communication manager, and the extension team on impact-oriented communications. Duties will include helping to draft updates/news releases, social media posts, 2-page fact sheets, student blog posts, or other emerging communication priorities. The work requires strong written communication skills and attending multiple virtual (and potentially in-person) meetings to learn and communicate about different DAWN activities.
Position 2 Description (Virtual or In-person position): The student intern will work with Dr. Kenney and the extension team on stakeholder-engaged research. Duties will include research tasks such as helping to set up and test surveys, supporting team members in tracking extension activities, updating and aggregating the metrics spreadsheet, and developing summative metrics of extension impact, supporting the coordination of stakeholder interviews to develop a decision calendar, and conducting literature reviews for Extension. The work requires basic knowledge of spreadsheets, attention to detail, and will include attending multiple virtual (and potentially in-person) meetings with the research and extension teams as well as supporting the technical facilitation of stakeholder meetings.
Location: University of Nebraska (Lincoln)
Position Description (In-person preferred): Assist with research data collection (soil samples, georeferenced crop scouting, tissue sampling, aerial imagery acquisition) for existing on-farm research studies (anticipate approximately 120 studies, of which nearing 50 will be related to nitrogen management). Depending on skills and background, can assist with data processing and analysis. Contribute to extension outcomes such as: 1) Film and produce short video updates of research studies and results for web and social media use; 2) Assist in development of articles for CropWatch and the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network newsletter to share research summaries and updates for farmer and agronomist audiences; and 3) Conduct interviews with participating farmers to use in web and social media. Co-present at field days and precision ag crop management clinics (assuming we can resume normal activities). Can adapt activities based on skills and desired experiences of the intern.
Location: University of Illinois (Urbana Champaign)
Position Description (In-person preferred): The intern will assist a postdoc research fellow in testing and applying the irrigation scheduling model under development in Co-PI Ximing Cai's group. Specific tasks will include: 1) collecting data for a testing case study site; and 2) preparing and participating in a model test with irrigation farmers.
Location: University of Maryland (College Park)- 3 available positions
Position 1 Description (In-person preferred): The student interns will work with members of Dr. Liang’s lab at UMD/ESSIC to develop machine learning models that use observations and climate model output to predict agricultural outcomes such as crop growth and yield. Interns will also have the opportunity to develop manuscripts that report their modeling outcomes. Candidates should have some coding experience and an interest in applying machine learning techniques to analyze large data sets.
Position 2 Description (Virtual position): This position is focused on ensuring that DAWN tools are designed with best usability practices and are aligned with stakeholder needs. The intern will work the co-PD on a variety of tasks, including but not limited to: 1) translating stakeholder needs into tool requirements; 2) designing tool user interface and functionalities; and 3) setting up mechanisms for feedback among DAWN working groups and with stakeholder communities. Responsibilities will be tailored to the intern's background and skill level, but at a minimum, a successful internship will require good written and oral communication skills and some familiarity with data science and visualization principles.
Position 3 Description (Virtual position): This summer intern will study crop water use at the field scale using remotely sensed data. The summer intern will help to improve and evaluate a Google Earth Engine (GEE) based evapotranspiration (ET) model by comparing the estimated ET with the flux tower observed data. The detailed tasks include organizing field observation data, getting familiar with the GEE environment using Java or the GEE Python API, comparing the model estimation with observed data and visualizing the comparisons.
Location: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service
Position Description (Virtual position): DAWN’s decision support system (DSS) team is searching for an intern to help with a variety of data analyses tasks that include GIS, data processing, and/or visualization using available software and analyses tools (e.g. R, Python, ArcGIS, MATLAB). The DSS under development within DAWN aims to compile and analyze agricultural management data reported and observed across numerous sites in Maryland and the US Midwest and use that data to diagnose and verify process-based agroecosystem models (such as the soil and water assessment tool-SWAT). We also will integrate remote sensing land use, climate forcing, and vegetation data into SWAT to perform a regional assessment of the impacts of crop management on productivity, soil health, and water quality. We are seeking interns with skills in programming and data analysis (e.g., knowledge about building or applying statistical models and remote sensing image processing).