2026 Internship Opportunities

Roughly 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of the coast and 15% live within 10 km. Researchers predict a continued and accelerating growth in human coastal populations with subsequent anthropogenic impacts on Earth’s systems. Given rapid global change, there are calls for more holistic approaches to coastal development that explicitly consider the aspirations and needs of local communities alongside biodiversity conservation goals. Costa Rica, a small country in Central America, plays a leading role in the conservation arena at national and international scales. Coastal development in the country is rapidly increasing, bringing with it significant environmental and…

This project investigates how wild lions and zebra herds coordinate their movements during hunts and escapes, combining ecological fieldwork with cutting-edge drone and computer vision technologies. Beyond revealing the mechanics of predator–prey interactions, the work aims to support lion conservation and coexistence strategies by improving our understanding of how hunting behavior adapts to environmental change and human pressures. We will address three central ecological questions: Do wild lions follow the same geometric pursuit strategies observed in controlled captive settings, or do natural conditions produce more adaptive and flexible hunting tactics? Do lions coordinate as a team—exhibiting spatial organization or role…

The primary goal of the interns would be to search for, discover, and select significant events in New Jersey’s ecological and conservation history in order to populate a state or regional timeline for Princeton’s iteration of Maya Lin’s memorial: “What is Missing?”. These events would demonstrate instances of species loss and loss of abundance, stories of restoration and recovery, and significant conservation milestones.

The ocean is a major source of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance that influences climate and life on Earth. Most intense emissions originate from oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) in the Pacific Ocean – ocean areas with vanishingly low oxygen levels. This project tackles a puzzle: why do the OMZs in the North and South Pacific exhibit dramatically different N₂O emissions? We propose to compare N₂O emissions in observations and multiple ocean numerical simulations and evaluate the drivers that explain the differences between these regions.

Plants grow in intimate association with a microbiome, a collection of microbes above- and below-ground that significantly impact the growth, productivity, and resilience of the plant host. As climate change increases the frequency and severity of drought, understanding plant-microbe interactions during drought stress is a growing area of study. The Conway Lab seeks to identify bacteria that alleviate drought stress in plants and understand the genetic mechanisms of these plant-microbe interactions. We have identified several candidate bacterial strains that are enriched in corn and soybean roots during drought. Using a collection of soil bacteria, we will construct synthetic microbial communities,…

In recent years, massive blooms of seaweed have spread across the tropical Atlantic. These floating mats of Sargassum can provide food and habitat for marine life, but very large blooms may also disrupt marine ecosystems and affect coastal environments. Satellites can detect where Sargassum appears, but we still do not fully understand what caused these blooms to become so pervasive or how they influence the ocean below the surface. This project will combine satellite maps with data from autonomous ocean observing platforms that dive through the water and record temperature, oxygen, and nutrients. The student will map where Sargassum occurs,…

Today, coral reefs are the cradle of marine biodiversity, but very little is know about the role metazoan reefs played in more ancient animal evolution and extinction.  ~520 million years ago, virtually all of the animal body plans still around today were invented in one very short period of time called the Cambrian explosion. In this internship, you will test the hypothesis that the first animal-built reefs roughened the seafloor, creating new habitat, nutrient supplies, and shelter, driving the unique Cambrian radiation of diversity and disparity, and setting off the next 500 million years of coevolution between animals and climate…

In recent work, we have shown that in pairs of competing orchard flies, species evolve in response to competition with one another, and this can powerfully affect species’ competitive trajectories and potential to coexist. Whether the knowledge of these eco-evolutionary dynamic processes we have gained from studying pairs applies in more diverse communities is unknown, not just in our system but in the field as a whole. In this project, we will perform mesocosm experiments in which focal species compete in pairs with a suite of different competitor species. Measuring evolution across these many pairs will give us expectations for…

This research project explores cutting-edge electrochemical technologies aimed at addressing one of the world’s most pressing challenges — carbon dioxide removal and sustainable carbon utilization. The project focuses on developing novel materials, electrodes, and systems that enable direct air capture (DAC) of CO₂ and its electrochemical conversion into valuable fuels and chemicals. By integrating materials science, catalysis, and electrochemical engineering, this work seeks to advance scalable negative emissions technologies that can help achieve global carbon neutrality. Participants will gain hands-on laboratory experience in materials synthesis, electrochemical testing, and product characterization, working with state-of-the-art equipment and guided mentorship. All training will…

Anthropogenic climate change is altering global and regional temperature distributions, with direct consequences for energy demand associated with space heating and cooling. This project will analyze how these demands—quantified using Heating Degree Days (HDD) and Cooling Degree Days (CDD)—evolve under both future warming scenarios and subsequent CO2 removal pathways. Using global climate model output, the intern will quantify changes in HDD and CDD across baseline (pre-industrial or present), peak-warming, and climate-restoration periods. Preliminary analyses indicate substantial regional asymmetries: in many regions of the Global South, increasing cooling demand may lead to higher economic and infrastructure burdens, while parts of the…