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

University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE)
Project Focus: Develop DAWN Decision Support Predictions

University of Illinois (Urbana- Champaign, IL)
Project Focus: Build the DAWN Science Modeling and Decision Support System

Kalamazoo College (Kalamazoo, MI)
Project Focus: Establish Proactive Extension to Engage Stakeholders for Coproduction

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (Beltsville, MD)
Project Focus: Develop DAWN Decision Support Predictions

Position Description (Virtual or In-person position): The goal of DAWN is to build a decision-support system that helps to increase land, nutrient, and water use efficiency in order to maximize crop production in corn, soy, and bioenergy fields. A core aspect of the project is to support social science research related to extension and engagement. The goal of this project is to support stakeholder engagement to improve the design, refinements, and support the use of DAWN to improve water and nutrient management decisions on-farm. Wide-reaching communications strategies are one impactful approach to sharing about DAWN to different audiences in the US Corn Belt. https://dawn.umd.edu

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 group is housed at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment led by Dr. Melissa Kenney. We conduct 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. https://z.umn.edu/melissakenney. 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 goal of DAWN is to build a decision-support system that helps to increase land, nutrient, and water use efficiency in order to maximize crop production in corn, soy, and bioenergy fields. A core aspect of the project is to support social science research related to extension and engagement. The goal of this project is to support stakeholder engagement to improve the design, refinements, and support the use of DAWN to improve water and nutrient management decisions on-farm. https://dawn.umd.edu

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 the coordination of stakeholder interviews to solicit feedback on DAWN tools, and conducting literature reviews for Extension. The work 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 group is housed at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment led by Dr. Melissa Kenney. We conduct 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. https://z.umn.edu/melissakenney.

Position Description (In-person preferred):  The innovative fertilizer research project (NRATE) is a multidisciplinary collaboration at UNL that focus on Advanced N management, enhanced efficiency fertilizers, conservation practices (cover crops), nitrogen and carbon emissions, soil health, soil microbial, nitrogen leaching and water quality, plant health, climate, and crop modeling and economic analysis.

The intern will assist with research data collection (soil samples, georeferenced crop scouting, tissue sampling), data processing, and visualization for the NRATE Project. The candidate will closely work with graduate students, technicians, and other interns to achieve team goals regarding data collection and analysis. Skills required are good written and oral communication and basic familiarity with data science and visualization principles. Responsibilities based on skills and desired experiences of the intern.

About the Lab: The Precision Ag Lab provides a collaborative environment where educators, students, technicians, and student interns work together to co-discover solutions to challenging nitrogen management issues. Research is conducted on UNL research station farms and farmers’ fields across Nebraska. You can learn more about the lab at https://agronomy.unl.edu/puntel-research

Position Description (In-person preferred): On-farm research can provide a great avenue to accelerate learning about topics that impact farm productivity and profitability. It is research conducted on farmer fields, using farmer equipment, and with farmer production practices. This means the research is directly applicable to their operation. The Nebraska On-Farm Research Network approaches topics that are critical to farmer productivity, profitability, and sustainability. These topics include nutrient management, pest control, irrigation strategies, conservation programs, new technologies, soil amendments, cultural practices, and hybrid and variety selection. Research comparisons are identified and designed to answer producers’ production questions. Projects’ protocols are developed first and foremost to meet individual cooperator needs.

The intern will be assisting 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 nearly 50 will be related to nitrogen management). Depending on skills and background, can also 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 the 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 summer intern will work on testing the Spatial EvapoTranspiration Modeling Interface (SETMI) model in the DAWN DSS by supporting farmer collaborators, helping them understand the model and conduct irrigation scheduling of their irrigated fields during the 2023 growing season. This will involve the use of satellite imagery and climate data to run the model.

The interns will interface with farmers, helping them run the DAWN DSS and the different tools while obtaining feedback useful for the project.  They will follow the progress of the DAWN DSS recommendations and collect data and results They will also help prepare a report at the end of the season.  

About the Lab: The position will be hosted at the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska, at the Nebraska Innovation Campus in Lincoln, NE. https://waterforfood.nebraska.edu/. The intern will have access to computers and University of Nebraska-Lincoln facilities.

Position Description (Virtual or In-person position): Understanding how weather conditions and different farm management decisions may impact crop yields can be important information that farmers can use to help plan their field seasons such that they are productive and profitable. Field scale computational crop growth models can be used to make crop growth and yield predictions based on soil, weather, and management practice inputs. These models can be run for a variety of different scenarios, allowing users to explore the range expected impacts, and help users to make decisions around how to proceed.

The intern will assist the Matthews Group at UIUC with developing and applying the BioCro crop growth model to study crop development and develop decision support tools around model predictions. Prior programming experience is preferred.

About the Lab: The position will be hosted by Dr. Megan Matthews' research group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UIUC. Dr. Matthews' group focuses on computationally modeling plant systems across scales, from genes and metabolic pathways to field scale crop growth dynamics and ecosystem interactions. Lab members include graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.

Position Description (Virtual or In-person position): The goal of DAWN is to build a decision-support system that helps to increase land, nutrient, and water use efficiency in order to maximize crop production in corn, soy, and bioenergy fields. A core aspect of the project is to support social science research related to extension and engagement. The goal of this project is to support stakeholder engagement to improve the design, refinements, and support the use of DAWN to improve water and nutrient management decisions on-farm. https://dawn.umd.edu

The student intern will work with Dr. Nupur Joshi, and the extension team on stakeholder-engaged research. Duties will include research tasks such as conducting a literature review, identifying gaps in literature, helping to set up and test surveys. The work 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 environment and society research group is housed at Kalamazoo College led by Dr. Nupur Joshi. We conduct local and international social science research at the intersection of the environment, society, and policy. The goal of the group is to support students to conduct environmental research, in collaboration with communities and government stakeholders to drive meaningful societal change.

Position Description (Virtual/In-person position): DAWN's decision support tool development team has been testing and applying a watershed scale model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool -Carbon) to evaluate how different crop management practices (e.g., fertilization, conservation, and cover crop) can influence soil nitrogen and carbon, as well as nutrient pollution in rivers. Such information will be provided to farmers in the Midwest and Northeast to support their decisions to ensure crop yields while maintaining/improving water quality.

DAWN’s decision support system (DSS) team is searching for an intern to help with a variety of data analysis tasks that include GIS, data processing, and/or visualization using available software and analysis 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/.