Available DAWN Internships

University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, MN)
Project Focus: Establish Proactive Extension to Engage Stakeholders for Coproduction

University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, MN)
Project Focus: Establish Proactive Extension to Engage Stakeholders for Coproduction

University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE)
Project Focus: Establish Proactive Extension to Engage Stakeholders for Coproduction

University of Illinois (Urbana Champaign, IL)
Project Focus: Develop DAWN Decision Support Predictions

University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Project Focus: Build the DAWN Science Modeling and Decision Support System

University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Project Focus: Build the DAWN Science Modeling and Decision Support System

University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Project Focus: Develop DAWN Decision Support Predictions

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (Beltsville, MD)
Project Focus: Build the DAWN Science Modeling and Decision Support System

Position 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.

About the Lab: The Environmental Decision Support Science Lab, housed at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, conducts multi-disciplinary social science research at the intersection of the environment, technology, and society. Strategies and decisions made at this nexus often encounter significant uncertainty about scientific evidence and involve stakeholders with conflicting objectives and values. The goal of our team is to understand and improve the processes and tools that aid these decisions, both in the public and private sectors. The communications intern would also be part of the Institute on the Environment communications team, which focuses on impactful storytelling to drive societal change. http://environment.umn.edu/

Position 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.

About the Lab: The Environmental Decision Support Science Lab, housed at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, conducts multi-disciplinary social science research at the intersection of the environment, technology, and society. Strategies and decisions made at this nexus often encounter significant uncertainty about scientific evidence and involve stakeholders with conflicting objectives and values. The goal of our team is to understand and improve the processes and tools that aid these decisions, both in the public and private sectors. The communications intern would also be part of the Institute on the Environment communications team, which focuses on impactful storytelling to drive societal change. http://environment.umn.edu/

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.

About the Lab: The Nebraska On-Farm Research Network and Precision Ag Lab provide a collaborative environment where educators, students, and farmers work together to co-discover solutions to challenging nitrogen management issues. Research is conducted with farmers, on farmer fields, allowing farmers to discover solutions that will work for their unique farm operation. You can learn more about the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network at https://cropwatch.unl.edu/on-farm-research and learn more about our Precision Nitrogen Management project at https://cropwatch.unl.edu/precisionnitrogen-management-farm-research-project.

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.

About the Lab: Co-PI Ximing Cai's group has been working on modeling and analyzing various water resources management and planning problems. The group uses a systems approach that integrates biophysical laws, economic principles and decision processes, and derives information for decision support. In the DAWN project, Co-PI Cai is leading decision support system development with a focus on the development of an irrigation scheduling model for real-time determination of when and how much to irrigate a crop field. The model is based on hydrologic and agronomic observation & simulation at the crop field scale, weather forecast, and interactions with farmers.

Position 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.

About the Lab: The Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) is a joint center between the UMD Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Geology, and Geographical Sciences. ESSIC faculty primarily conduct research on topics related to climate variability, atmospheric composition, and the global carbon and water cycles. Dr. Liang’s lab uses integrated global and regional models to study climate dynamics, seasonal climate and hydrology predictions, climate change projections, and associated environmental and agricultural consequences. Lab members include undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs who work together in a supportive and collaborative environment.

Position 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.

About the Lab: The Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) is a joint center between the UMD Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Geology, and Geographical Sciences, with extensive experience in bringing geoscientific research to operations. Dr. Gerst's lab uses social science and systems engineering methods to co-produce decision support tools that meet stakeholder needs and advance user-centric environmental science. 

Position 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.

About the Lab: Our team works on energy and water flux mapping using remote sensing data through cloud computing to detect and monitor vegetation water use conditions at field scale. This vegetation water use data can provide information for improved irrigation scheduling, and watershed and water resource management.

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).

About the Lab: The USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Lab consists of over 10 research/support scientists and conducts nationally oriented basic and applied research on the use of remote sensing in addressing water and soil resource concerns related to the production of food and fiber, climate change and the conservation of natural resources. More information is available at https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-barc/beltsville-agriculturalresearch-center/hydrology-and-remote-sensing-laboratory/