Internship Opportunities

Nine Week Research Internship for Undergrads

The application process for summer 2013 is now closed. Please check back this fall for 2014 applications.
Download them here (Adobe Acrobat recommended): Application form, Recommendation letter form

The intern program in a nutshell

As a JISAO research intern you will work closely with a mentor, and often within the context of a research team, to conduct a research project related to you specific interests. Depending on the project, the summer may involve hands-on experience in the field or laboratory, or both.

At the end of the summer interns will design a research poster displaying the results of your work. You will also create a three-minute video summarizing your experience over the summer. Each intern will present their poster and video during a program the final week of the internship that will be open to the JISAO community as well as student’s family and friends. Click here to see videos made by previous interns.

There will also be weekly seminars that each intern is expected to attend. Seminars feature guest speakers discussing topics such as:

• The Arctic, a Harbinger for Global Climate Change
• How to Create a Successful Research Poster
• Sights and Sounds of the Bering Sea
• The Journey of an Atmospheric Chemist

Eligibility

Internship participants must be a current undergraduate student and a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. Students graduating the spring before the program are not eligible for the JISAO Internship Program. Participants must be returning to an undergraduate program after thier summer with JISAO.

JISAO is committed to promoting diversity and building a diverse, inclusive community of environmental scientists. All undergraduate students, especially those traditionally under-represented in the sciences, are encouraged to apply.

Important dates

February 11 – Application deadline
April 1 – Target date for notification of acceptance
June 23 – University or Washington campus apartments open
June 24 – Program begins with orientation at 10:30 am. After lunch interns will be taken to their work locations to meet their mentors.
August 23 – Final presentations
August 25 – Last day to be in the apartments. Depart for home

Download the application form here. Completed application forms and letters of recommendation should be emailed to Jed Thompson at jedthom@uw.edu. 

Applications may also be mailed to:

Jed Thompson
University of Washington
Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO)
Box 355672
Seattle, WA 98195

Seattle Met magazine

JISAO's internship program is featured in the Best Places to Work issue of Seattle Met magazine (January 2013) as on of "Seattle's coolest internships."

Excerpt from the magazine:

On a Whale’s Tail: Orca Research

University of Miami undergrad Rachel Pausch spent two months of her 2011 summer with a dog that had a nose for whale poop. They cruised around Puget Sound looking for orca pods while she was a research intern for the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean; the UW-based group studies endangered whales around the San Juan Islands. The team’s black Labrador retriever would bark when it caught a whiff of orca poo, and the boat would move close enough to collect whale feces samples to analyze for stress-hormone levels. “Seeing whales every day was amazing,” Pausch says. “Every time I saw their dorsal fins rise to the surface it was like seeing them for the first time.” The internship was paid, but the biggest draw for her was working alongside a wide spectrum of research scientists—and getting up close to sea life. The rewards for Tucker the black lab were simpler: a ball on a rope and a profile in The New York Times. —Dameon Matule

Scientists interested in hosting an intern should contact Jed Thompson at jedthom@uw.edu.

2012 Interns

Abby Ahlert, University of Maryland - Abby studied microscopic plastic debris in the oceans with Dr. Giora Proskurowski in the UW Oceanography department.

Karimar Ledesma Maldonado, University of Puerto Rico - Karimar analyzed solar radiation in the northwest United States with Dr. Laura Hinkelman and JISAO Director Tom Ackerman. 

Shirley Leung, University of Pennsylvania - Shirley worked with Dr. LuAnne Thompson and used numerical and analytical models to explore the ocean's role in heat storage under various conditions.

Isabel McCoy, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology - Isabel worked on identifying characteristics of stratocumulus clouds with JISAO's Dr. Andreas Muhlbauer.

Bianca Santos, Stony Brook University - Bianca went to Alaska to study the growth of coho salmon with Dr. Daniel Schindler and the Alaska Salmon Research Program.

Ricky Vargas, Rutgers University - Ricky studied precipitation variations over the Cascade mountains with Dr. Cliff Mass in the UW Atmospheric Sciences department.

Are you a former intern visiting the site? If so, please send us an update at jedthom@uw.edu and find us on Facebook.