All students receiving a fellowship in Ecosystem Informatics must complete a six-month internship at a host institution aligned with their interests. The internship may spark an idea for their dissertation.The student will select a project of interest and develop a plan of work. The host institutions will provide mentors; expose students to the range of activities at the institution, as well as help coordinate housing, office space, computers, and other local arrangements. OSU will provide the student with lodging, travel funds, a stipend, and office space if necessary.
The laboratories and institutions listed below are some possibilities.

Advice from previous students' experiences

Be clear on why you are going, what you need to learn, and have a specific project that is agreed upon among all parties in advance

Do a thorough background check on the lab you are working with

Include communication with postdocs and grad students because they will likely be the ones you will spend the majority of your time with

Have a very specific timeline and expect it to take longer than you think

Make sure that your work can only be done in the place where you are going to – how important is it to be in that place to accomplish what you need to?

 Have a product in mind – a paper, new tool, etc.

Try to select a product that will speed your progress in general

Call the US Embassy for up-to-date details on travel logistics

Computer security is critical – check ahead

Internships at National Laboratories and Institutions        

CRITFC CRITFC (Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commision), Portland, OR Internship Opportunities Contact Phil Roger ROGP@critfc.org

Laboratory of Tree-ring Research (LTRR), Tucson, Arizona  (*Malcolm Hughes, Tom Swetnam) The LTRR (www.ltrr.arizona.edu) is a department of the University of Arizona, whose mission is to apply dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) to improve understanding of natural environmental variability in climatic, hydrologic, geomorphic, and ecological systems and their interactions with human societies. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at LTRR include: application of dendrochronology to global change, climatology, hydrology, forest ecology, tree physiology, Quaternary studies, geomorphology; and development of new techniques for analysis of dendrochronologic records.

Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) Monterey, California  (Deidre Sullivan) http://www.marinetech.org/education/internships.php) One of the primary goals of the MATE Center is to develop educational resources and opportunities for students interested in marine science and technology.

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado (Doug Nychka) NCAR is part of the University Consortium for Atmospheric Research (www.ucar.edu/ucar/). The Scientific Computing Division (SCD) of NCAR is devoted to enabling atmospheric research by providing and advancing high-performance computing technologies. SCD offers computing, research data sets, data storage, networking, and data analysis tools for NCAR users. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at UCAR include SCD Strategic Initiatives and R&D efforts in computational science, applied mathematics, numerical analysis, geosciences, software engineering, technology tracking, benchmarks, frameworks, data access and visualization, collaborative tools, and web technologies.

National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Santa Barbara, California (Jim Reichman) At NCEAS (www.nceas.ucsb.edu/), scientists conduct collaborative research on major fundamental and applied problems in ecology. The Center facilitates integrative research aimed at synthesizing existing data and information, and subsequently making these data available. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at NCEAS include new techniques in mathematical modeling, dynamic simulation, visualization of ecological systems, and digital mapping of complex ecological phenomena. 

World Wildlife Fund – US, Washington DC  World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), Washington, DC.(Lara Hansen)   WWF (www.wwfus.org/) is the largest privately supported international conservation organization in the world, working on protecting global wildlife and wildland protection since 1961 through more than 13,100 projects in 157 countries. WWF has three global conservation goals: protecting endangered spaces, saving endangered species and addressing global threats. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics. Internships at WWF include endangered species, endangered spaces, forests, climate change, oceans, and conservation science.

Internships at International Laboratories and Institutions      

European Forestry Institute (EFI), Finland (Marcus Lindner, Andreas Schuck) EFI (www.efi.fi) is an independent non-governmental organization conducting European forest research. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships include carbon sequestration in forestry; effects of environmental changes on forestry; management of forests under various pressures; biodiversity; options for future development of European forest resources; information services for policy and decision-making in forestry and related disciplines.

Climate Policy Project, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan (Anita Srinavasan)  http://www.iges.or.jp/ Established in 1998, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an independent, not for profit think tank, based in Japan, that goes beyond research to provide practical ways to protect the earth's environment and to realize greater sustainability and equity in the global community. While the outlook of IGES is global, the principal geographical scope of its activities is Asia and the Pacific region, an area which is experiencing rapid economic development and which will affect the global environment through its population growth, urban environmental problems and other environmental issues. The IGES mission is to move human society to become more environmentally and socio-economically sustainable.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility & Europena Environment Agency (GBIF, EEAOECD), Denmark ( James Edwards, Hannu Saarenma) http://reports.eea.eu.int/Technical_report_No_34/en )The EEA aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy making agents and the public.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria (Sten Nilssen)IASA (www.iiasa.ac.at/) is a non-governmental research organization that conducts inter-disciplinary scientific studies on environmental, economic, technological and social issues in the context of human dimensions of global change. It is sponsored by National Member Organizations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at IIASA include adaptive dynamic networks, air pollution, forestry, land use, and risk, modeling and society.

Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the IUCN, Gland, Switzerland (Mariano Giminez-Dixon) The SSC (www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/) is one of six commissions of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) comprising a knowledge network of 7,000 volunteer practicing natural scientists in nearly 200 countries. The SSC maintains the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is developing a Species Information Service (SIS, global species information resource) and a global portal on genetically modified organisms. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at SSC-IUCN include software engineering, model development, data mining, and GIS focused on taxonomic information, population status data, and threatened and endangered species classifications.                                                                                                                         

CSIRO Land and Water, Australia (David Post)

CSIRO Marine Research, Australia (Jeff Dambacher) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia.  CSIRO is a scientific global research organization sponsored by the government of Australia, including the CSIRO Centers for Marine Research (www.marine.csiro.au/) and CSIRO Land and Water (www.clw.csiro.au/). CSIRO Marine Research conducts research in the areas including fishing and aquaculture, climate conservation, water and wastewater. Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at CSIRO include novel computer applications for integrating information from migrating fish, models of ocean temperature and currents, and regional climate models.

Center for Scientific and Technological Research (ITC-IRST), Italy (Cesare Furlanello)The IRST is a component of the Trento Cultural Institute (ITC) (www.itc.it/index.htm) dedicated to research in several fields including information technology and artificial intelligence Topic areas for Ecosystem Informatics internships at ITC-IRST include GIS predictive mapping of vector-borne diseases in alpine environments, ecological modeling of the spatial distribution of animal populations, and analysis of forests via multi-temporal classification and comparison of aerial imagery.

Corvallis, OR-based laboratories of federal and state resource management agencies:

• Pacific Northwest Research Station, US Forest Service (John Laurence, Fred Swanson)

• Western Ecology Division, US Environmental Protection Agency (Lackey)

• Biological Resources Division, US Geological Survey (John Hayes)

• Oregon Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit (Hiram Li)

• Bureau of Land Management (John Cissel)

• CRITFC (Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commision), Portland, OR Opportunities Contact Phil Roger ROGP@critfc.org

Corvallis-based labs of federal and state resource management agencies

Students will participate in 1-day internships at these local laboratories as part of a class requirement

• U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station 

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

• Biological Resource Division of the US Geological Survey

(*People in parenthesis are point of contacts for lab/institution)