California Trout, Source Water Initiative 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:
California Trout's mission is ensuring healthy waters and resilient populations of wild fish for a better California.
At California Trout, we work to ensure healthy waters and resilient wild fish for a better California. It's our belief that abundant wild fish indicate healthy waters and that healthy waters benefit all Californians. With more than sixty large-scale conservation projects underway, in tandem with public policy efforts in Sacramento, our six regional offices work tirelessly to advance our cause through a three-pillared approach to conservation.
Our vision is of a California where water flows free, clean and cold from headwaters to sea – a vision of watersheds teeming with native, wild fish whose resilience and diversity match that of the people throughout this great state we call home.
Internship Overview:
The intern will work directly with Project Manager Tyanna Blaschak, Regional Director Damon Goodman, as well as other regional and statewide Cal Trout staff, and a research team composed of CSU East Bay, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and UC Davis.
Day to day work:
Intern will work in an office of about 10 people with their own desk space. Intern will participate in staff meetings and check-in regularly with their mentor/supervisor, with a mix of field and office days. Field work will be done in either pairs or teams, with the supervisor, another project manager, or the researchers.
Location: Mt. Shasta, California
Internship Work Environment:
This internship will be in person only with 30% field work and 70% office work.
Housing:
There is no on-site housing available, but Mt. Shasta is a small community, and the team will support the intern with their housing search, including providing options and reaching out to the larger community for low-cost and appropriate housing options that may not be advertised. The team will do its best to make this process as supportive as possible to the intern.
Car: It *will* be necessary to have a car.
- Assist with collecting streamflow and temperature data on a focal set of springs and spring-fed streams.
- Help collect water samples for water quality and geochemical analysis.
- Help collect and analyze fish otoliths to study growth rates of fish from spring-fed and other river systems.
- Compile and organize information, develop numerical and graphical summaries and create a presentation on tasks 1-3.
- Assist with public outreach and educational events, as well as activities related to other restoration and science projects in the region, such as fish surveys, water quality, riparian planting, and project implementation monitoring.
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.
Application Guidelines for this Internship:
At least second year undergraduate level coursework preferred.
Required Skills:
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Strong organizational and writing skills
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Ability to work well in a team
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Graphing and analysis skills in excel, R, Python or other similar programs
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The student should feel comfortable working outside, hiking, walk in rugged terrain and along rivers, swim and snorkel in rivers for data collection.
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A good attitude and willingness to learn!
Desired Skills:
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Prior experience and/or coursework in natural resource management, conservation, biology, aquatic ecology, fisheries biology, geomorphology, hydrology, environmental science, environmental engineering, or other related fields preferred.
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 supervisor 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 are required to 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.