American Rivers, River Restoration Internship, Summer 2024
Every summer, The Bill Lane Center for the American West offers many opportunities for Stanford undergraduates (including graduating seniors and co-terms) to work with organizations throughout the West. Through these internships, students can explore careers in natural history, conservation, land use, museum curation, resource management, energy and more.
All internships are full-time for nine to ten weeks during the summer. They are fully funded by the Lane Center with stipends ranging from $7,500 to $10,000.
The Lane Center has placed hundreds of interns in positions across the West since 2005. It has developed strong relationships with host organizations and works hard to ensure interns have successful and enriching experiences.
For more information about the internship program, please visit the FAQs page, or email Education Manager Corinne Thomas.
Details about the summer 2023 cohort of student interns and their placements can be found here.
Student reflections about the internship experience can be found by visiting the Out West student blog and the Lane Center Instagram channel.
Stipend Information:
The Bill Lane Center will provide a base stipend of $7,500 with additional funding for student financial aid and location, if applicable, up to $10,000.
Description of the Organization:
American Rivers’ mission is to protect wild rivers, restore degraded rivers, and conserve clean water for people and nature.
The California Region’s Central Valley Program works with conservation and community-based organizations throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Sacramento Valley, and San Joaquin Valley to reconnect rivers to their floodplains. Our floodplain restoration work gives rivers room to spread naturally on their floodplain and away from communities during high flood events, which recharges groundwater aquifers, restoring habitat for native fish, wildlife and plants, and increasing public access to rivers for disadvantaged communities.
Internship Overview:
The Great Valley Grasslands River Park Planning Project is a combined floodplain restoration and public access project on the lands of Great Valley Grasslands State Park (GVGSP). Few public access opportunities exist at this park, and the installation of walking trails and boardwalks, wildlife viewing platforms, non-motorized boating improvements, and interpretive signage have the potential to dramatically improve surrounding disadvantaged communities’ ability to access the San Joaquin River and adjacent nature areas at this under-resourced state park.
In addition, the ecological resilience of a 1,083-acre floodplain containing the Central Valley’s largest remaining grassland area is threatened by poor river floodplain connectivity, invasive vegetation, and a legacy of damaging land use practices such as cattle grazing and levee construction.
This project aims to improve the ecological resilience of the floodplain site through completing preliminary designs for floodplain restoration and public access improvements, completing project permits and environmental compliance requirements needed to start construction.
The River Restoration Intern will assist the Public Access team (composed of American Rivers, California Department of Parks and Recreation, community organizations, and a landscape architect) with:
- Coordinating closely with communities of interest to identify public access opportunities within the GVGSP
- Convening public meetings, pop-up outreach events, and focus groups
- Developing communications materials (and/or translating materials into relevant languages, if applicable)
- Assisting with the drafting of a Public Access Scoping Report, which will identify and summarize current and potential future areas for fishing, nature observation, and water recreation, and recommend concepts for trails and other public access amenities.
Ultimately, interns will shape future planning for restored riverine and floodplain habitat, improvements to walking and hiking trails, develop signage that tells the diverse historical and cultural histories at the park, and create amenities that will make this park accessible to all who visit this incredible and underutilized park.
Internship Work Environment:
This internship will be hybrid with 20% field visits and 80% virtual work. The intern will be required to attend some in-person meetings, field trips and site visits.
Housing: The intern must live within driving distance of the Central Valley, California. While this is a primarily-remote internship and relocation to the Central Valley is not necessary, the intern supervisor is able to assist with a housing search, if needed.
The intern will need to drive or travel to meet American Rivers staff in the Bay Area or Sacramento, California area to get a ride for field visits to Great Valley Grasslands State Park in Merced County.
Please note: It will be extremely helpful for student intern to have a car in order to attend outreach meetings and to visit Great Valley Grasslands State Park. If the intern does not have a car, they will need to carpool with staff who reside in the Bay Area or Sacramento.
In a typical 40-hour, 5-day week, 1 day (8-hours) would be spent in the field, and 4 days (32-hours) would be spent working remotely. This will change to accommodate fluctuating project needs and staff/intern/project team availability.
The intern will primarily work remotely from a home office with several one-on-one and small, in-person meetings. Remote work would typically include participating in project team calls, joining internal staff calls, and participating in webinars/ seminars of interest (as intern interest and schedule allows).
The intern will work directly with the Associate Director, California River Conservation, who will supervise and mentor the intern, and the intern will also have the opportunity to join weekly team coordination calls with American Rivers’ Central Valley team and key California staff. Additionally, the intern will have the opportunity to observe and participate in virtual staff meetings with the California Headwaters and Dam Removal programs, and engage in virtual national staff meetings, communities of practice, and intern gatherings.
During in-person meetings, intern may interact with staff, members of the public, and the project team to facilitate public meetings at community centers and/or meet at Great Valley Grasslands State Park to visit the site and participate in surveys (as intern interest and staff schedules allow).
As time and interest allow, intern may assist American Rivers and State Parks staff in completing monitoring activities at the park. (This schedule will change according to project needs and staff/intern/project team availability.)
- Assist with convening pop-up public outreach meetings, and focus groups
- Create and administer public surveys to solicit input on restoration and trails/public infrastructure project planning
- Assist with writing draft Public Access Scoping Report
- Assist with creating (and translating, if applicable) outreach materials, such as story maps, videos, posters, and flyers to be used to engage, inform and educate local residents, public officials, agencies, and interest parties to protect, restore, and increase access to Great Valley Grasslands State Park and other state parks in the Central Valley
- Pending intern interest/availability: Assist with ongoing monitoring activities at Great Valley Grasslands State Park and/or assist with completion of project Monitoring and Long-Term Management Plan
Bill Lane Center internships are part of Cardinal Quarter opportunities and students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. The opportunities are full-time (35-40 hours a week) for 9-10 consecutive weeks during the summer.
Specific start and end dates can be coordinated directly with the supervisor.
All undergraduates of any year, including graduating seniors, are eligible. Graduating seniors are eligible only if they are graduating in spring quarter. Students who have already graduated, e.g., fall or winter quarter of this academic year are not eligible.
Coterms are eligible only if they hold undergraduate status.
For more application advice, please visit the BLC’s FAQs page.
Please note:
- Students are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise) during this full-time, summer internship.
- Student athletes should confirm the impact of any awarded stipend on their athletic eligibility by contacting the Compliance Services Office prior to committing to an internship.
- New Stipend Policy per the U.S. Department of Education: A stipend is considered a resource and it may have an impact on a student’s financial aid. To comply with US Department of Education regulations, student payments, awards, prizes, and gifts that are made available to the student because they are a Stanford student, must be reported to the Financial Aid Office. The Financial Aid Office is responsible for the disbursement of stipend funds to undergraduates. For more information, please visit the Financial Aid Office's webpage about the student stipend policy.
Required Skills:
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Excellent communication skills (written and spoken communication)
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Self-motivation
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Enthusiasm and passion for protecting and restoring rivers
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Enthusiasm and passion for improving disadvantaged communities’ access to parks, open space, and nature recreation
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Well-organized and resourceful
Desired Skills:
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Experience or coursework in:
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Graphic design
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Ecology/biology/environmental science/hydrology
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Land use planning
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Knowledge of California water and environmental policy
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Fluency in a critical language spoken widely in the Central Valley (such as, but not limited to: Spanish, Punjabi, Hmong)
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Experience with translation, community outreach and engagement
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Experience with Geographic Information System (GIS)
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Selection of applicants:
Complete applications are screened and finalists are contacted for a first-round interview with staff from The Bill Lane Center for the American West.
The top candidates for the position are then forwarded to the organization for second-round interviews with their potential supervisors and other staff.
Host organizations will then notify the Lane Center of their preferred candidate and that applicant will receive an internship offer from the Bill Lane Center by email.
The applicant is expected to respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to the offer or the offer will be rescinded.
Once an applicant accepts an offer, they should promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and withdraw their candidacy from those other opportunities.