California Trout, Source Water Initiative 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:
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 primarily be assisting with CalTrout’s Source Water initiative, a project that is focused on studying and quantifying the major springs of the Upper Sacramento River basin and how they influence the life history diversity of wild trout.
This will include a mix of field data collection and office tasks, such as analyzing reports and developing summaries, attending meetings, and working with our partners including University of California Davis, California State University East Bay, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
During the summer, with advisement of their mentor, the intern will develop and complete a project on a topic of their choosing/interest that is relevant to the source water initiative. Additionally, the intern will also assist with other science and restoration projects within the Mt Shasta-Klamath Region and have opportunities to network with partners and CalTrout staff across the state.
Day to day work:
The intern will work independently as well as 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.
The intern will assist with field data collection and site visits to various projects.
The intern will work in an office of about 10 people with their own desk space. The 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.
The student would occasionally work with other college-age students, particularly graduate students, as part of the source water project field 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 for the intern to have their own vehicle. Given the rural nature of Mt Shasta and the surrounding area, it is car dependent. There may also be occasions where the student would need their own vehicle to assist with field work.
- Compile and organize information, develop numerical and graphical summaries, and create a presentation on a topic of the intern’s choosing that has relevance to the source water initiative.
- Assist with collecting streamflow, temperature, and gage data on a focal set of springs and spring-fed streams and learn how to take discharge measurements with the help of the mentor and scientist partners.
- Help the source water initiative partners with data collection on site visits. This could include collecting samples for water quality and geochemical analysis, electrofishing to analyze fish otoliths to study growth rates of fish from spring-fed and other river systems.
- Participate in meetings and take notes, and review, synthesize, and summarize technical documents and reports into summaries.
- 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 restoration, 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 (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.
Preference is given to students who have not previously been awarded a Bill Lane Center West internship and to students who will be enrolled the following fall quarter.
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:
No preference for any class year or major. Some coursework in a relevant field is desirable (e.g. natural resource management, conservation, biology, aquatic ecology, fisheries biology, geomorphology, hydrology, environmental science, environmental engineering)
Required Skills:
- Strong organizational and writing skills
- Basic skills in data handling and organization (minimum familiarity with spreadsheet software such as Excel)
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Ability to work well both in a team and independently
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The student should feel comfortable working outside, hiking/walking occasionally in rugged terrain and along rivers, wading, snorkeling/swimming 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.
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Analysis and coding skills in excel, R, Python or other similar programs not required but highly desirable.
Selection of applicants:
Complete applications are screened by Lane Center staff and the top candidates are contacted for a first-round interview with staff from The Bill Lane Center for the American West.
After the first-round interviews, top candidates for the position are then selected by a Lane Center committee to be forwarded to the host organization for consideration and possible second-round interviews with their potential supervisors and other staff. Preference is given to students who have not previously been awarded a Bill Lane Center West internship and to students who will be enrolled the following fall quarter.
After consideration, 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 and another candidate may receive the offer.
Once an applicant accepts the offer, they should promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted the Lane Center internship offer and withdraw their candidacy from those other opportunities.
Applicants not selected will be notified by Lane Center staff as soon as possible.
