2025-26 AY PT Research Fellowship: Brazil Forest Restoration & Conservation
The Stanford King Center on Global Development’s Academic Year Part-Time Research Fellowship Program connects King Center faculty affiliates and affiliated researchers with undergraduate students committed to providing research support during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.
Students have the opportunity to engage in world-class research that has real-world impact. Undergraduate student research fellows are paid $19/hour*. Students must be enrolled full-time to participate and must be able to commit to research 8-10 hours per week.
*Students must attend orientation and submit an I-9 form to verify employment and receive payment. Students who cannot accept pay may be allowed to receive academic credit for this research.
Research Project Description:
Natural climate solutions such as forest conservation and restoration are essential for tackling climate change while providing co-benefits for biodiversity, water, and livelihoods. In this project, we will focus on Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, which has been reduced to just 12% of its original extent. Restoring this landscape is critical for securing ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water quality, and biodiversity habitat, especially for the millions of people who depend on these resources. Building on a three-year-long partnership with the Brazilian NGO SOS Mata Atlântica and leading Brazilian universities, this research will connect cutting-edge science to on-the-ground conservation practice. We will combine project-level data, satellite imagery, and statistical and machine learning models to generate maps of reforestation and conservation. Using the Natural Capital Project’s InVEST software, we will link reforestation outcomes to ecosystem service benefits, quantifying the climate, biodiversity, and water quality benefits. The final goal is to help guide cost-effective, durable, and high-impact restoration and conservation investments, while highlighting regions that require stronger community engagement, policy support, and financing to succeed. The student may have the opportunity to support additional related research projects.
Primary Research Mentor: Dr. Gretchen Daily, Professor of Biology; Faculty Director, Natural Capital Project
Co-Research Mentor: Hilary Brumberg (E-IPER PhD student)
Stanford undergraduate students in good academic standing and enrolled full-time are eligible to apply. Co-term students must have undergraduate student status; if co-terms are in graduate billing status (after 12 quarters) they are ineligible to participate.
All majors are welcome!
Students Responsibilities:
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Compile and clean large geospatial datasets.
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Assist in detecting forest establishment and reversal events using Brazilian MapBiomas platform satellite time-series in Google Earth Engine.
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Support development of statistical and/or machine learning models to predict reforestation persistence.
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Collect data and run InVEST ecosystem service models, both locally and on Sherlock.
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Create visuals of results.
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Conduct literature reviews and acquire secondary data.
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Contribute to manuscripts, reports, posters, and presentations, including for scientific conferences, SOS Mata Atlântica, lab meetings, and other community partners.
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Responsibilities will be flexible based on the student’s skills and interests.
Students qualifications:
Required:
- Coursework or experience in computer science, data science, environmental science, or related fields.
- Proficiency with Python or R.
- Experience managing large datasets.
- Data visualization and science communication.
- Strong organizational skills.
- Interest in community-informed research.
- Interest in applying technical skills to global development, sustainability, and conservation challenges.
Preferred:
- Research experience with machine learning, statistics or data science.
- Proficiency with Google Earth Engine.
- Familiarity with QGIS and/or ArcGIS.
- Experience with high performance computing or Google Cloud Project.
- Experience conducting literature reviews.
- Portuguese language skills.
- Knowledge of the reforestation field and/or the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
Time Commitment:
The time commitment is 8-10 hours per week (equivalent to a 3-unit course) each academic quarter. The expectation is that students will work the full academic year with their mentor (Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters). Students planning on studying abroad may not be eligible.
To Apply:
Along with the application, applicants are asked to submit:
- a cover letter
- resume or CV
- unofficial Stanford transcript (first quarter frosh do not need to submit transcripts for autumn quarter applications)
