CONSERVE: A Center of Excellence at the Nexus of Sustainable Water Reuse, Food, and Health

Undergraduate Summer Internship Program 

Our leading team of scientists and educators are facilitating the adoption of transformative on‐farm water treatment solutions that can enable the safe use of nontraditional irrigation water (e.g. advanced treated wastewater, return flows) on food crops. Our vision is to be a national resource bringing together research, outreach, and education to effectively reduce the nation’s agricultural water challenges that are exacerbated by climate change.

With projects located throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southwest, we are looking for undergraduate student summer interns to assist us in our research and education efforts. We are currently looking for assistance on projects focusing on water quality analysis, on-farm water treatment technology testing, spatial analysis and mapping, and farmer education and outreach. Find out more about our opportunities and student eligibility by visiting:

http://conservewaterforfood.org/summer-conserve-scholar-internship-program-1/

The 8-week internship will start on June 15, 2020, ending on August 7, 2020. Interns will receive a stipend of $5,000. Additional funds for expenses (e.g., travel, lodging, per diem) are not provided. We are accepting applications from now until February 21, 2020.

The following positions are available:

Location: University of Arizona (Maricopa)

Position Description: The student intern will assist the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension students and staff in implementing and delivering outreach materials to Arizona based stakeholders. Additionally, the student will support water treatment efforts related to the project.

Location: University of Maryland (College Park) – 2 Available Positions

Position 1 Description: The position will be split between the Extension and outreach efforts led by Dr. Rosenberg Goldstein and Dr. Sapkota's lab. The summer project will be focused on the RRIPER (Rooftop Runoff Irrigating Produce Eaten Raw) project evaluating water, soil, and produce from gardens irrigating with collected rain water or rooftop runoff. Duties will include collecting field samples from gardens; processing soil and produce samples; filtering water samples and extracting DNA (which will be used to profile the microbial communities present in the different water sources over time using 16S sequencing and shotgun metagenomics); entering data (water parameters, DNA concentrations, etc.), and doing preliminary data analysis. Extension and Education duties will include writing up results from field sampling; designing figures and tables of results; updating and editing outreach materials; conducting literature reviews for Extension and peer-reviewed publications; and acting as proxy for Extension team on conference calls with other CONSERVE project teams. The intern will spend 60% time supporting the lab team, and 40% time supporting the Extension team. This shared position will allow the intern the opportunity to learn advanced microbiological techniques and develop skills in translating complex scientific information to a variety of stakeholder audiences, including growers, Extension educators, and students.

Position 2 Description: The intern will gain hands on experience in geospatial data collection and analysis. He/she will help with the data collection and processing and will work in developing the GIS platform of alternative water sources for agricultural irrigation. The intern will be exposed to large-scale hydrological modeling and optimization techniques. He/she will also be part of a team developing decision support systems for water reuse in agriculture.

Location: U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (Beltsville, MD)

Position Description: The intern will be relied upon to help sampling teams in the field collect appropriate surface and reclaimed water samples. The incumbent will also be asked to perform quantitative and qualitative microbial analysis for bacterial pathogens in irrigation and reclaimed water samples. The intern will be responsible for assisting microbial detection and confirmation of enteric pathogens recovered from water samples, and confirming culture recovery results with PCR assays. The intern will also be responsible for constructing and setting up zero-valent iron (ZVI) filters in the laboratory and on the farm. This will include different filter designs with different combinations of sand and iron appropriate for different water types that are being analyzed. Overall, this position will provide exposure to environmental, food, and molecular biology techniques to the intern. This position is only open to U.S. citizens.  

For more information about these positions and how to apply, go to http://conservewaterforfood.org/summer-conserve-scholar-internship-program-1/