Internship/Partnership Resources

​​An internship will augment students’ hands-on experience in their field(s) of interest, while simultaneously creating relationships with experts and professionals. Through an internship, students will be able to enhance their conflict resolution, workplace habits, adaptability, and problem solving skills. As a part of our requirements for Ridge 2 Reef, an involved internship will significantly develop our students’ employment prospects, exposure to multiple career paths, and resume enhancement. The following sections detail specific internship programs to which our students can apply, as well as additional resources for venturing outside of the listed internships. These internships and recommended resources are simply likely fields of interest for R2R trainees, and are not limitations on any research and/or internship experience students may desire.

R2R Internship Partners

• Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP)
• Newport Bay Conservancy
• Orange County Water District
• UC Davis Wildlife Health Center
• California Coastal Commission
• Bodega Marine Lab
• California State Parks and Recreation
• Irvine Ranch Water District
• Natural Communities Coalition
• Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI)
• Orange County Sanitation District
• Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park
• Crystal Cove Conservancy
• California Air Resources Board (CARB)
• Orange County Environmental Justice
• Coastal Ocean Environment Summer School in Ghana (COESSING)
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District
• California Community College Internship Program
• AECOM

On-Campus Resources

In addition to our strong degree programs, we will leverage UCI centers of excellence to accomplish our goals in research, training, and institutionalization. Relevant centers and programs include the following:

The Sustainability Initiative is a platform for interdisciplinary, community-engaged education and research with two full-time and three part-time staff members. The initiative funds the UCI Climate Action Training Program, directed by Allison, which aims to prepare graduate students from all disciplines for careers related to climate challenges.

The Center for Environmental Biology (CEB) facilitates research, education, and outreach to develop innovative solutions to environmental problems. Staff include a full-time translational ecologist and public outreach, education, and assessment specialist. The CEB received a $1M foundation grant to integrate UCI research with local resource management needs and establish an internship program for undergraduates and Master’s students that R2R will extend to PhD trainees. A recent survey of the 27 former interns from this program garnered 17 respondents with 14 currently employed at organizations engaged in management practice.

Water UCI is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on grand challenges in freshwater science, technology, management, and policy. Directed by UCI Professor David Feldman, this initiative has established Team Water UCI, a transdisciplinary research group of graduate students collaborating with UCI faculty, community leaders in Borrego Springs, CA, and NASA scientists working with satellite data.

The School of Engineering hosts the NSF-funded UCI Water-PIRE that focuses on international collaboration to develop sustainable urban water systems with an emphasis on water treatment and conservation. This center is pioneering convergence between natural scientists and engineers.

UCI OCEANS is a collaborative that is developing new UCI community-engaged research and education programs on coastal water quality and marine ecosystems.

The Data Science Initiative provides research support and training expertise in Big Data science. This initiative has supported skills training by developing innovative short courses. Since 2016, the initiative is running UCI’s first NRT focused on team science and Big Data in the physical sciences.

Handshake is the Division of Career Pathways’ comprehensive online career services platform. Students use Handshake to: discover internship options through searching by major; search for internships on and off-campus targeted to UCI students; connect with employers and students who previously worked for those companies through the comment function on postings and information sessions; prepare for a successful search by viewing and enrolling in upcoming workshops and career labs. Current students already have an account that can be accessed with the student’s existing UCINetID and password.

The Disability Services Center aims to promote a culture of inclusion and equal opportunity for students with disabilities is a campus wide responsibility and commitment. UCI demonstrates its core values of individual growth, development, civility, and diversity by recognizing students with disabilities as an important part of its student body.

UCI supports its students at all levels with the Counseling Center. The center provides a broad range of mental health services. This includes individual, couples, family, group counseling, and psychotherapy for registered undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students. They also provide urgent care, crisis response, consultation, and outreach programs for the university community.

For PhD students, the Versatile PhD mission is to help graduate students, ABDs and PhDs identify, prepare for and excel in professional careers. They offer unique and instructive content, networks, job analytics and readiness tools. Utilize the opportunities they provide on their website.

Additional student resources can be found through UCI at: https://eee.uci.edu/resources/students and https://grad.uci.edu/services/grc/index.php

Off-Campus Resources:

www.californiadegrees.org/the-ultimate-guide-on-water-conservation-how-to-save-every-drop/

Helpful Books

• Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in Science by Melanie V. Sinche
• A Guide to Making Your Science Metter: Escape from the Ivory Tower by Nancy Baron
• Strengthsfinder 2.0: Discover Your CliftonStrengths from Gallup and Tom Rath