Building Resilience to Sea Level Rise and Drought in the Bay Area - Advancing Policy Frameworks and Technical Analysis
Overview
The San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District (OneShoreline) is an independent government agency that works across jurisdictional boundaries to secure and leverage public and private resources for the long-term climate resilience of San Mateo County. With lengthy shorelines along San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, San Mateo County has more people and property at risk from sea level rise than any other county in California, which is why all cities within the County, plus the County itself, have invested in the early success of OneShoreline, the first government agency of its kind west of the Mississippi.
To develop transformative solutions at the scale of this climate-driven crisis, OneShoreline is pursuing and managing projects by taking a holistic approach to:
- Geography – OneShoreline is the vehicle through which San Mateo County and its cities can align efforts across jurisdictional lines and within the context of an entire watershed or regional shoreline;
- Threats – OneShoreline focuses on the singular and combined impacts of water-related, climate-driven hazards (sea level rise, extreme storms, coastal erosion, and drought);
- Objectives – While OneShoreline’s priority is flood protection, it is also invested in improving San Mateo County’s resilience to droughts.
Given that OneShoreline was established in January 2020, a Summer 2025 fellow will have an opportunity to develop key information that will help shape the future of this important countywide agency. Through this fellowship, a student would gain real-world experience in both the political and technical dimensions of climate change infrastructure planning and implementation. Fellows will become acquainted with the landscape of climate resilience work in San Mateo County and beyond, and will wrestle with the challenges of working across multiple jurisdictions and the tensions that arise between differing objectives. Fellows will also have the opportunity to connect with a diverse set of agencies and stakeholders in public policy, engineering, urban planning, and environmental fields.
About the Fellowship
A Summer 2025 fellow will work with OneShoreline and its partner agencies to explore central technical and/or policy questions as the agency advances regional projects related to the shoreline, inland flooding, coastal erosion, stormwater, and droughts. In your application, you will be asked to indicate your interest in a fellowship focused on policy or technical aspects of OneShoreline’s work, as described below. In addition, a Policy/Communications or Technical/Mapping Fellow will have an opportunity to join OneShoreline project site visits, interact with staff at other agencies in San Mateo County, and if timing and circumstances allow, present their findings to OneShoreline’s Board of Directors, composed of city and county elected officials.
A Policy/Communications Fellow may complete tasks involving the following activities or issue areas, depending on how the fellow interests and OneShoreline needs intersect during Summer 2025:
- Digesting information from various studies/reports and synthesizing into clear written deliverables (e.g., internal reports, policy briefs).
- Supporting development of OneShoreline’s outreach materials/communications, including content creation, website/social media/email campaign development, and a needs assessment on how OneShoreline can improve its outreach communications.
- Evaluating the feasibility of constructing non-potable reuse facilities in San Mateo County.
- Supporting the development of OneShoreline’s guidance document focused on the critical task of integrating climate risks into public infrastructure/capital planning along the San Mateo County Bay shoreline, building off of the current OneShoreline Planning Policy Guidance that is focused only on private development.
- Support the development of Emergency Action Plans (EAPs) for three cross-jurisdictional watersheds that experience frequent flooding, including support for stakeholder engagement and coordination and coordination with the San Mateo County Department of Emergency Management. The EAPs will better define flood management and mitigation responsibilities before, during, and after flood events, and outline methods to develop and deliver key flood data to agency staff and the public in case of a flood emergency.
- Completing a self-directed analysis and/or white paper on any topic of interest to the student and relevant to OneShoreline’s work.
A Technical/Mapping Fellow may complete tasks involving the following activities or issue areas:
- Supporting the development and interpretation of technical information to enhance our understanding of the flood and/or drought risk in San Mateo County by incorporating recent hydrologic and hydraulic studies completed for specific watersheds and accounting for impacts of constructed/planned flood protection and/or water recycling infrastructure.
- Developing ArcGIS maps and dashboards for various purposes, including improvements to OneShoreline’s Bayside Map of Future Conditions representing the most current understanding of water-related hazards in San Mateo County.
- Improving upon OneShoreline’s database of flooding hotspots in San Mateo County, where locations of past floods are mapped and documented. The database could also incorporate a citizen science portal that allows residents to report flooding during storm events, and could be integrated with OneShoreline’s flood early warning system.
- Completing a self-directed analysis and/or white paper on any topic of interest to the student and relevant to OneShoreline’s work.
Qualifications:
- Preference for PhD or Law graduate student
- Independent worker, comfortable taking initiative and seeking out resources.
- Strong team-worker and collaborator.
- Excellent communication skills in English (the language of the fellowship), including in presentations and writing. Applicants for the Policy/Communications Fellowship will have the option of submitting a writing sample relevant to the topic.
- For the policy/communications fellow role, students should be very familiar with policy issues related to climate change adaptation and comfortable thinking creatively and communicating effectively about these issues.
- For the technical/mapping fellow role, students should have strong analytical skills and experience with relevant software. This can include all or a subset of the following: ArcGIS, HEC-RAS, and data manipulation/processing tools (e.g. R, MATLAB, Python).
Stipend
Students in a 2-year Masters program will receive a stipend of $9,500. Students who have begun their coterm programs (i.e. paying graduate tuition) will also receive a stipend of $9,500. PhD students on a 50% assistantship can work up to 16 hours/week and will receive up to $4,500 for a part-time fellowship. PhD students with departmental flexibility for more hours can discuss options with PCJ program staff.
Please note that students can apply for no more than three different PCJ fellowship opportunities during a single application round.
This is a 10-week opportunity during Summer 2025, starting no later than July 7, 2025. All fellows are required to work with their community partners for ten consecutive weeks.
Masters and PhD students from all academic disciplines are encouraged to apply.
In order to be eligible, graduate students must be enrolled at least in spring quarter. Students are required to be in good academic standing. The requirements for good academic standing include: 1) Earn at least 9 units of credit in a single quarter. 2) Earn at least 36 units over the most recent three quarters 3) Maintain a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 or above.
Additional Fellowship Requirements
This opportunity is associated with Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area (PCJ in the Bay), an initiative to build equitable climate change solutions by supporting partnerships between Stanford students, faculty and Bay Area community leaders. Fellows will be a part of a cohort of other PCJ in the Bay summer fellows placed at sites across the Bay Area.
Additional requirements include
Spring 2025:
- Complete an online program orientation.
- Participate in an in-person Engaging in Ethical and Effective Service workshop at the Haas Center.
- Identify and meet with an academic mentor (Stanford faculty or staff) at least once.
- Design a personal learning plan and share the learning plan with your site supervisor and academic mentor.
- Complete all required pre-orientation forms.
- Attend the spring retreat with cohort peers (date TBD).
Summer 2025:
- Complete a pre-program assessment survey.
- Attend all PCJ in the Bay Fellows cohort activities (more information will be shared about these events in spring quarter).
- Submit a final report documenting your work and reflecting on your learning.
- Correspond with fellowship donor(s) as requested by fellowships program staff.
- Complete a post-program assessment survey.
Fall 2025:
- Meet with your academic mentor to discuss your fellowship experience at least once.
- Participate in outreach activities to share the experience and help publicize the program.
Frequently Asked Questions for PCJ Summer 2025 Fellowships.
Selection Process
Complete applications are screened, finalists interviewed, and fellows selected by the host organizations staff with the intention to award fellowships prior to spring break. Applicants should respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to a fellowship offer, or the offer will be rescinded. Once an applicant accepts a fellowship offer, the student should promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and to withdraw their candidacy.
