2026 Internship Opportunities

We study wild Broad-tailed Hummingbirds at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. These migratory hummingbirds are critical pollinators of wildflowers at this high-elevation montane site (2,900 m). Changes in the timing of snowmelt (attributed to climate change) in recent years have contributed to shifts in the timing of floral bloom. Changes in flower phenology are likely to impact pollinators: the arrival of hummingbirds at their breeding site in the Rockies might be mismatched with floral bloom. Our goal is to obtain a clearer picture of hummingbird pollination behavior. Which flowers do hummingbirds visit, and how does this change…

Soils are the largest repositories of stable organic carbon on the surface of our planet. Progressive alteration of plant and microbial biomass leads to the production of this organic carbon pool in soils. Many studies have evaluated how soils retain and preserve organic carbon and shown that physical and chemical disturbances to this ecosystem can release this organic carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2, leading to changes in the global temperatures. Although soil organic carbon can exist by itself (particulate organic carbon, POC), a significant pool exists as coatings on inorganic materials, such as clay minerals and disordered Fe/Al…

African savannas contain the highest diversity of large mammals in the world. How will Africa’s mammals respond to climate change, and what are the implications of these responses for the composition of large herbivore communities? Ecological theory suggests that species varying in body size have different constraints—larger species are less vulnerable to predators, yet more sensitive to heat and have higher energy requirements than smaller species. By studying how antelope varying in size behave to navigate these constraints, we aim to predict how communities of savanna herbivores will be affected by climate change. Since 2014, the Pringle Lab has conducted…

The intern(s) will join a team of graduate and undergraduate student researchers on a long-term study of a population of marmots living in the western Rocky Mountains near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), ongoing since 1962. The study involves daily field work, hiking, gravel biking, trapping and handling of live animals, and observing and recording marmot behaviors using field notes and audio recorders. The student will assist with and at times lead a 2-person team in marmot live trapping and handling of adult and juveniles animals (pups). The student will assist with annual collection of biological samples including blood,…

Professor Ramaswami’s Urban Nexus Lab is leading several projects that use Machine Learning (ML) and Computer Vision (CV) to quantify global infrastructure, including buildings and roads, as well as environmental features such as trees and green cover. The internship will focus on such topics in India, with the possibility of expanding to other countries depending on the intern’s experience and progress. Interns will work with diverse datasets, including remote sensing and localized data sources (e.g., building permits). While much of the groundwork has been laid by the lab’s previous work, the group encourages creativity and new ideas to connect data…

Traditional farming landscapes, often managed by Indigenous and local communities represent some of the world’s largest remaining reservoirs of biodiversity, agrobiodiversity, and biocultural heritage. Yet, the knowledge systems that sustain them are increasingly threatened by climate change, agricultural modernization, and genetic erosion. The goal of this project is to map and assess the biocultural vulnerability of neglected and understudied crops that hold socio-ecological and cultural significance. Many of these species function as cultural keystone species, linking ecosystems, livelihoods, and identities. Following a biocultural framework, the study treats crop decline not only as a loss of genetic resources but also as…

Microplastics are a persistent pollutant found throughout the environment that have been shown to negatively affect ecosystems and human health. Many microplastics are less dense than water and will accumulate in the surface of lakes, rivers, and oceans where they can potentially be remediated and removed. The goal of this work is to study how microplastics are transported in waves at the free surface and how wavy flows can be generated to aid collection of microplastics. The research will be conducted in a lab with floating particles in a tank and a prototype floating robotic microplastic collector. Topics include the…

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is produced and consumed by microbes that thrive only in environments where oxygen is either very depleted or absent. Therefore, we were surprised to find that both of these processes could be measured in the oxygenated surface ocean! We are now pursuing the question of what kind of microbes are respiring nitrous oxide under these conditions. Isolates will be obtained by rigorous stepwise enrichment and testing for the capacity for nitrous oxide respiration. We have one set of isolates already purified from the Pacific Ocean and another set of enrichment cultures underway from the Atlantic. These cultures…

This project investigates how combinations of beneficial and harmful bacteria influence each other’s ability to colonize plant roots. The student will work with simplified synthetic microbial communities to study how community composition affects which strains successfully establish on the plant. Using sterile plant growth systems and DNA-based tracking tools, the student will measure changes in strain abundance during colonization experiments. The results will help reveal general principles of microbial community assembly and identify features that enable beneficial microbes to persist on plant hosts.

Hydrogen (H₂) is a climate-active trace gas, with its global warming potential more than an order larger than carbon dioxide. Despite the expected increase in hydrogen emissions from a global hydrogen economy, its impact on climate change remains uncertain. This uncertainty stems from a limited understanding of soil microbial H₂ consumption, which is the largest sink of atmospheric H₂ and responsible for over 70% of its removal. How the soil microbial H₂ consumption responds to soil moisture and temperature, which are key climate sensitive factors controlling microbial activity, are under investigation. Physiological factors, such as responses to nutrient availability and…