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Apply by April 18: Coastal Forests Community Engaged Internship

Trees by the coast of Cape Cod. Photo: National Parks Service
The Community Engaged Internship (CEI) program is a federally funded initiative through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that provides undergraduate students with paid summer internships with Sea Grant programs. MIT Sea Grant is recruiting a CEI intern to work with us on a project assessing the effect of environmental factors and management practices on the restoration of coastal forests (more information about the internship below).

 

Summer 2025 Community Engaged Internship with MIT Sea Grant

  • Eligibility: Undergraduate students, including those graduating this spring, from any Boston area university are eligible to apply. Candidates experienced in GIS and Data Analysis/Visualization are strongly encouraged.
  • Timeline: The time commitment is 8-10 weeks for summer 2025 (40 hours/week)
    • May 30: Funded Intern Introduction Meeting convened by the National Sea Grant Office (virtual)
    • June 2: Internships begin
    • July 20 – 24: In-person Field Experience Week in North Carolina with paid expenses
    • August 6: Internship Presentations and Celebration (virtual)
  • Compensation: $6000
  • To Apply: Applications will be accepted until EOD on Friday, April 18, 2025. Please submit a cover letter and resume to Stephen Hart at sthart@mit.edu and Carolina Bastidas at cbastidas@mit.edu.
  • More about the internship: The intern will collect and analyze data on coastal urban and rural forests at sites differing in environmental conditions and history of disturbances. To accomplish this, a set of variables will be collected from historical records. Additional past environmental data of interest will be collected from public weather databases like NOAA’s online Climate Record Data. When possible, another set of variables will be obtained by field observations of established and newly planted trees from restoration efforts and the environment. The results of this project will allow us to infer the effects of conditions and the effectiveness of practices in the restoration efforts at these coastal forests, providing the best recommendations from different approaches and perspectives implemented.

Photo: Cape Cod National Seashore, National Parks Service