American Rivers, Urban Stream Revitalization Internship, Summer 2025

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 previous summer 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. The stipend is provided to cover living expenses and, if applicable, part of the summer earnings expectation of the Office of Financial Aid.

The stipend is not intended to be, and is not, a paid, hourly wage. An internship is an educational and experiential learning opportunity intended for the student to apply their academics and gain real-world experience.

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:

Sacramento’s urban creeks have been channelized, diverted for flood control and agriculture, and threatened by habitat fragmentation, urban encroachment and pollution, limiting urban creeks’ capacity to provide habitat for imperiled wildlife species, including Swainson’s hawk, valley elderberry longhorn beetle, northwestern pond turtle, and migratory fishes, such as Chinook salmon, and Central Valley steelhead. The Delta Stewardship Council’s 2018 Delta Adapts study notes that Sacramento's disadvantaged communities are vulnerable to high flood risk, which is expected to worsen due to sea level rise and shifts in precipitation patterns. These communities also experience negative health outcomes associated with urban heating and limited access to parks and trails, affordable housing, and healthy food options.

The Urban Stream Revitalization Intern will help address these issues in support of the Sacramento Urban Creeks project, which is intended to increase pace and scale of Sacramento creek restoration projects that will improve regional-scale climate resilience for disadvantaged communities and imperiled fish and wildlife species, build the capacity of local organizations to lead creek restoration projects, and improve cooperation between local organizations and potentially-interested parties. This project will do so through initiating scoping efforts through identifying community and agency leaders to champion urban creek revitalization projects in Sacramento, and by pinpointing opportunities to restore and enhance riparian habitat, address climate resiliency needs within Sacramento’s disadvantaged communities, and creating public financing and policy engagement plans that will sustain the future planning and implementation of urban creek restoration projects.

The Urban Stream Revitalization Intern will assist American Rivers staff and the Sacramento Urban Creeks project team (composed of American Rivers, Sacramento Community Land Trust, and other TBD members of the project team) with development of:

(1) Development of the project’s Outreach Plan, which will map partner agencies, NGOs, community groups, and decisionmakers key to restoring urban creeks and streams in the Sacramento region;

(2) Development of the project’s Community Needs Assessment, which will identify where improving the health of urban creeks could help or complement ongoing work to address community needs, such as food insecurity, affordable housing, public safety, safer transportation corridors, and lack of green space/parks;

(3) Development of the project’s Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation Strategy Technical Memo, which will map the area’s urban creeks and as we identify where, when and how climate change impacts in the Greater Sacramento region will occur;

(4) Development of project communications that tell impactful, interesting stories about Sacramento’s urban creeks and their community champions, such as blogs, short films, Storymaps, factsheets and flyers distributed at community meetings.

Where appropriate, the intern may assist with development of the Restoration Scoping Report that will pinpoint opportunities for future restoration, Financing/Funding Plan, and Policy Opportunities Plan.

Internship Work Environment:

This internship will be hybrid with 20% field visits/outdoor/in-person and 80% indoor/remote work. The intern will be required to attend some in-person meetings, field trips and site visits.

Please note that California staff and projects maintain home-based offices across Northern California and California’s Central Valley. Internship applicants should be prepared for occasional travel to project sites and partner meetings in Sacramento.

In a typical 40-hour, 5-day week, 1 day (8-hours) would be spent in the field (to include activities such as attending city council meetings, outreach meetings, and/or site visits with project partners), and 4 days (32- hours) would be spent working remotely. This will change to accommodate fluctuating project needs and staff/intern/project team availability. Evening/weekend availability may be required.

The intern will primarily work from home on a daily basis, with several one-on-one and small, in-person meetings each week. The intern will work directly with Kristan Culbert, Associate Director, California River Restoration, who will supervise and mentor the intern. The intern will also have the opportunity to work with members of the Central Valley team who are working on the Sacramento Urban Creeks project.

In addition to working closely with Kristan Culbert and other Central Valley team members who are working directly on the Sacramento Urban Creeks project, the intern will be able to join biweekly team coordination calls with the American Rivers’ Central Valley team and the California regional 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 meetings with national staff meetings, communities of practice calls, intern gatherings, and organization-wide seminars and trainings. 

Depending on the intern’s interest and availability, the intern will assist with development of American Rivers’ Clean Water Cities Initiative and/or have one-on-one mentorship meetings (called “mini-moments”) with American Rivers staff who are working on urban creeks and clean water issues throughout the country.

A typical day: the intern will primarily work remotely from a home office. 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). 

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 different project sites in the greater Sacramento region to visit the site and participate in outreach efforts. 

As time and intern interest allow, the intern may assist American Rivers in taking photos/video and developing communications to be used for the project and/or American Rivers’ new Clean River Cities Initiative. This schedule will change according to project needs and staff/intern/project team availability.

There may be opportunities to meet other American Rivers interns working throughout the US during virtual intern gatherings and/or in- person meetings with the California regional team.

Housing: On-site housing is not available. While this is a primarily-remote internship and relocation to Sacramento is not necessary, the intern supervisor is able to assist with a housing search, if needed.

Please note: The student intern will need access to a car in order to attend community outreach meetings and field visits. If the intern does not have a car, they will need to commute to Sacramento and carpool with American Rivers staff who live in the area. There is a commuter train, the Capitol Corridor, between the Bay Area and downtown Sacramento that is a popular option with staff and interns.