A graduate student internship position is available in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL; U.S. Department of Energy) Strategic Energy Analysis Center. NREL is the primary laboratory for research, development, and deployment of renewable energy technologies in the United States.
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Job Description
A graduate student internship position is available in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Strategic Energy Analysis Center. NREL is the nation’s primary laboratory for research, development and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
NREL has an opening for a graduate student intern in the Golden, Colorado office. The intern will join a team of researchers in NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center (www.nrel.gov/analysis) who perform environmental sustainability assessments of energy technologies.
The projects the intern will support assess the tradeoffs between energy, water, and food systems, including water availability and impacts on the power sector, across different regions in the United States. The intern will lead the development of an analysis framework of high resolution national-scale energy-water data sets and model results, which may require advanced statistical methods. The intern will also be involved in data collection and validation of water withdrawals, discharges, and quality impacts of and on energy systems (hydropower and thermal power plants). Based on performance, this position allows for participation in other NREL food-energy-water-nexus activities and model development.
Desired Education, Experience and Skills:
- Applicants must have demonstrated skill and experience with analyses of agriculture, energy and water data sets.
- Familiarity with Python, as well as federal and state agriculture, energy and, water data sets is preferred for this position.
- Knowledge of statistical methods, reservoir operations, hydrologic modeling, energy system modeling, thermal and hydro power plant operations, and GIS are desirable, but not required.
- Excellent oral and written communication as well as recordkeeping will be essential.
- A strong candidate will have proven abilities to develop informative papers and presentations and to manage work to meet deadlines.
Basic Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations research, economics, environmental science, environmental engineering, business, or other energy-related field or equivalent relevant experience.
Must be enrolled as a full-time student in a degree granting program, or graduated in the past 12 months from an accredited institution. Internship period cannot exceed 12 months past graduation. Minimum of a 3.0 cumulative grade point average.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Candidates working toward their PhD, with consideration toward how the work of this project could contribute toward their dissertation. The team at NREL has in-depth knowledge and experience in energy-water-nexus analysis that will provide a philosophical if not tactical framing for this project.
- Previous experience with water policy, resiliency, and risk analysis is preferred for this position.
- The applicant will ideally have a strong publication record compared to peers at similar levels of education and career experience.
