This fall, the Earth Institute is offering Columbia students opportunities to intern within various departments and research centers at the institute. All full-time Columbia and Barnard students are eligible to apply. These internships are funded at a rate of $15 an hour for 10 hours per week and up to a maximum of 120 hours for the fall 2014 semester. The positions include:
- Communications and outreach for the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy
- Partnerships advisor, One Million Community Health Workers Campaign: technical intern
- Partnerships advisor, One Million Community Health Workers Campaign: communications intern
- Intern, Columbia Water Center, Optimized Fertilizer Application Using NDVI Lowcost
- CRED outreach administration, data management and general clerical Intern
- Intern, storm-related changes in Hudson River sediments
- Intern, Emerging Market Global Players project
To apply:
To apply for these positions, complete the online application available here: http://fs21.formsite.com/earthinstitute/form126/index.html, by Sept. 11 at 11:30 p.m. While you may apply for more than one position, you must submit separate applications for each. Decisions will be made shortly after the deadline.
Note that students who are awarded internships will be expected to participate in the Earth Institute Student Research Showcase which will take place in spring 2015.
Contact Nathan Rudder at nrudder@ei.columbia.edu with any questions.
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1. Communications and outreach for the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy
Department: Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy
Anticipated tasks: The intern will assist the program manager and the executive director on a key Lenfest strategic goal: communications, public outreach and event planning related to a number of projects being conducted by the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. The intern will also work on activities related to Lenfest and PositiveFeedback participation in Lamont Open House and/or other external events. PositiveFeedback activities are conducted in collaboration with the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions along with our institutional partners at NYU and CUNY.
Duties include:
- Website updates
- Create/edit newsletter content and promotional materials
- Manage email database
- Social networking
- Assistance with overall communication and stewardship efforts
- Draft/edit grant letters of inquiry
- Logistics coordination for conferences, workshops, and outreach programming
- Event staffing
- Other administrative functions
Skills required:
- Excellent writing skills
- Strong command of English
- Basic website and social networking familiarity.
- HTML familiarity a plus
- Highly organized
- Independent worker
- Interest in sustainable energy/climate change/arts related projects
Type of student desired: Graduate
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2. Partnerships advisor, One Million Community Health Workers Campaign: technical intern
Department: One Million Community Health Workers Campaign
Project background: The One Million Community Health Workers Campaign is devoted to catalyzing the rapid training, real-time management and large-scale deployment of front-line community health workers (CHWs) throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The campaign builds upon the successful advocacy and awareness efforts of the global community over the past years, in the name of the Millennium Development Goals, allowing a growing group of partners to focus on defining the financing and operational systems for the upgrade and expansion of national CHW programs.
Anticipated tasks:
The technical intern will be an integral part of the campaign team, working closely with its other members on CHW advocacy and other supportive activities. The primary focus will be on implementing components of the team’s research and advocacy strategy. Activities may include writing policy documents, summarizing situation briefs and conducting basic research or analysis on topics related to CHWs as well as other public health topics of interest.
Skills required:
- Preference will be given to candidates who have an understanding of public health and health systems in general.
- Experience working within the CHW landscape (or relevant experience and the ability to learn quickly) is ideal.
- Quantitative background in algorithmic modeling, or effectiveness evaluations, strongly preferred.
- Exceptional written and oral communication skills.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities and to manage multiple projects and assignments simultaneously.
- Ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
- Experience supporting the administrative and research needs of individuals working in nonprofits and/or academia, preferably with a focus on international development, is also highly desired.
Type of student desired: Graduate
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3. Partnerships advisor, One Million Community Health Workers Campaign: communications intern
Department: One Million Community Health Workers Campaign
Project background: The campaign is devoted to catalyzing the rapid training, real-time management and large scale deployment of front-line community health workers (CHWs) throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The campaign builds upon the successful advocacy and awareness efforts of the global community over the past years, in the name of the Millennium Development Goals, allowing a growing group of partners to focus on defining the financing and operational systems for the upgrade and expansion of national CHW programs.
In order to achieve this objective, the campaign must continue to proactively build awareness, engagement and activation of key stakeholder groups, as well as the general public. The communications intern for the campaign will be an integral part of the campaign team, working closely with its other members on CHW advocacy and other supportive activities. Activities will include contributions to newsletters, the campaign’s blog and website, social media platforms, printed materials and workshop materials, to name a few.
Anticipated tasks:
The intern will be an integral part of the campaign team, working closely with its other members on CHW advocacy and other supportive activities. The primary focus will be on implementing components of the team’s research and advocacy strategy. Activities may include writing policy documents, summarizing situation briefs, and conducting basic research or analysis on topics related to CHWs as well as other public health topics of interest.
Skills required:
- Preference will be given to candidates who have an understanding of public health and health systems in general.
- Experience with WordPress, Twitter, graphic design tools and other media.
- Ability to absorb and re-deploy key messaging through advocacy mechanisms and social media.
- Exceptional written and oral communication skills.
- Ability to work in a fast paced environment with changing priorities and to manage multiple projects and assignments simultaneously.
- Ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
- Experience supporting the administrative and research needs of individuals working in nonprofits and/or academia, preferably with a focus on international development, is also highly desired.
Type of student desired: Undergraduate
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4. Optimized Fertilizer Application Using NDVI Lowcost
Department: Columbia Water Center
Anticipated tasks:
- Aid in the calibration of a novel DIY camera capable of computing NDVI to use for optimizing fertilizer application in agriculture.
- Cultivate and maintain plants for the experiments.
- Take NDVI pictures under different experimental conditions.
- Data analysis and reporting of the results.
- Contribute with ideas to improve the methods.
Skills required:
- Basic knowledge in statistics and data analysis.
- Basic knowledge in photography (image processing in Fiji is a plus)
- Excel (knowledge of R is preferred).
- Strong communication/reporting skills.
Type of student desired: Undergraduate
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5. CRED Outreach Administration, Data Management and General Clerical Intern
Department: Center for Research on Environmental Decisions
Anticipated tasks:
Outreach administration
- Social media — assist with weekly administrative aspects of CRED social media.
- Website — assist in making weekly updates and modifications to CRED website.
- Outreach tracking — aid in dissemination and tracking distribution of the 2009 and 2014 Climate Change Communication Guides; assist in responding to outreach requests related to the guides.
Data management
- Research data — assist with archiving and digitization of CRED research data.
- CRED Portal — assist with maintenance and further development of CRED Researcher Portal (online tool for CRED internal communication and data sharing).
- CRED self-study — assist with analysis and visualization of CRED self-studies (e.g. social network analysis, integration assessments, impact visualizations).
General clerical
- Assist with financial reconciliations as needed.
- Assist with miscellaneous administrative tasks as needed.
Skills required:
Academic interests: sustainable development, psychology, environmental problems, climate change.
Skills: proficiency with Excel, strong writing and communication skills, ability to work independently.
Type of student desired: Undergraduate
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6. Storm-related changes in Hudson River sediments
Department: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Anticipated tasks:
The student would assist in analyzing acoustic data from the Hudson River identifying changes in sediment deposits by comparing data from 2000-2004 with data from 2014. Initial checks have identified changes of ~0.5m in some places.
The anticipated tasks would include digitizing acquired new seismic data, calculation and graphing of old and new data using Excel and organizing and mapping the results in ArcGIS.
Skills required:
- Background in environmental or earth sciences.
- Confidence in working with Excel and potentially
- ArcGIS is preferred but not required.
Type of student desired: Undergraduate, Graduate
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7. Emerging Market Global Players Project
Department: Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Project background: The growth in cross-border trade has continued to outpace the growth in global GDP, and the growth in foreign direct investment as been even faster. Although global investment has yet to return to its pre-crisis (2007) levels, investment from developing and transitioning economies has continued to increase, and in 2013 accounted for 39 percent of outward investment flows. These figures show that, increasingly, global economic activity is being driven and shaped by emerging-market firms. Because of the growing role of these entities, it is important to have an understanding of them and their salient characteristics.
To gather that information, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment has created the Emerging Market Global Players Project, a research network with institutional partners in roughly 15 different countries, with whom the center has worked to collect data on the largest multinational enterprises from those countries. The firm-level information we have gathered looks at information not available elsewhere and includes, for instance, the size of the companies, the places where their affiliates are located, the gender composition of their board of directors, the number of employees they have at home and abroad, and other characteristics.
Anticipated tasks:
We are seeking an intern to help us analyze and present the data in a report for our network of research partners as well as a broader global audience interested in foreign direct investment trends, and in particular, the rapid rise of emerging-market-based firms. The tasks the intern will be expected to perform include organizing and consolidating various pieces of information and data generated in the research stage of the project, coordinating and communicating with various partners and center staff, and creating infographics and other visually appealing and informative ways to present the data and findings of the research. Further, the intern will gain an intimate understanding of the operations of the center and how to coordinate and present research findings at a leading applied research center.
Skills required:
The ideal candidate will be skilled at writing, editing, handling datasets and producing infographics in order to present data in a way that helps clearly communicate trends and patterns to a diverse audience. The ideal candidate will preferably have some expertise in communications, with related ICT capabilities, and the ability to think of creative ways to present and organize data. Ideally, the candidate will also have an interest in investment and sustainable development and will enjoy working on a team.
Type of student desired: Graduate
