Open Positions

Communications Intern

Description:

The Natural Capital Project is looking to hire a communications intern to work with us on a project for the Department of Defense to evaluate the ecosystem-services impacts of land management decisions on 3 large military installations in the United States. The intern will help us document the land use decision-making process at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, help us prepare the final report, and will tailor the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs) user manual to reflect the natural-resource management priorities and context at the Department of Defense. InVEST is a software tool developed by the Natural Capital Project used to value the goods and services from nature that are essential for sustaining and fulfilling human life. The communications intern will also help with general communications needs of the Natural Capital Project including developing content for our electronic and print communications.

Desired skills:

• Excellent writing and copy-editing skills
• Ability to craft a message for a target audience
• A keen attention to detail
• Ability to work efficiently and independently
• A genuine interest in the work of the Natural Capital Project

Hours: 10 hours a week during the academic year, up to 40 hours during the summer.

Salary: $15-20 per hour

Application Deadline: Review of applications will begin immediately, applying early is strongly encouraged.

How to Apply:

Email a cover letter and resume to Elizabeth.Rauer@stanford.edu.

Software Engineer

We are seeking to hire a software engineer to join our software development team in a highly collaborative group of researchers with partnerships among The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, and Stanford University. We are developing a tool that will become the basis of planning land use decisions in protecting and restoring watersheds around urban areas in Latin America and this position will help support the development and deployment of that tool.

We offer a flexible academic work environment on the vibrant Stanford campus. Our team focuses on developing high quality open source code and follows pragmatic programming practices as well as the option to work on a 20% side project.

Principal Responsibilities:

The Software Engineer will support the development of the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) family of software tools by implementing mathematical models of environmental services and water funds prioritization into software with the specific focus on the functional and usability of those tools. Other job functions include writing test suites, fixing software bugs, implementing new features, writing documentation, participating in code reviews, and supporting internal project management tools for the development team.

The successful candidate will be an intelligent, self-directed individual who is passionate about working on collaborative software projects. The candidate will need the ability to adapt to new technologies and be able to prioritize work across a variety of outstanding tasks.

Required Qualifications:

• B.S. in computer science, or related discipline
• Experience developing a large software application for production. Relevant projects can include course capstone projects for recent graduates.
• Strong understanding of core computer science algorithms and computational complexity.
• Experience developing user interfaces.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with web design and JavaScript.
• M.S. in computer science, or related discipline.
• Experience with software project collaboration techniques such as bug/feature tracking databases and revision control tools.
• Experience with numerical/scientific computing.
• Experience with scientific visualization techniques.
• Experience working with and/or maintaining open source software projects.
• Experience with GDAL, OGR, Geoserver, and/or PostGIS.
• Familiarity with C, Fortran, Python, and/or Cython.

Term: Through August 30, 2013 and beyond, contingent upon funding.

Location: The position is located in Palo Alto, California at Stanford University and will require extensive interaction with interdisciplinary teams and travel within the US and Latin America.

How to Apply: Interested applicants will apply online on Stanford University's job site at jobs.stanford.edu, Job ID #47137 to be considered. Please include contact information for three references at the end of your cover letter. In your resume or cover letter, describe one or two software projects you have contributed to and any interesting data structures or algorithms you encountered during development. Bonus points for linking to source code or online versions of those projects.

The anticipated start date for this position is March 30, 2012 or earlier. Applications will be reviewed as they are received. Please apply ASAP.

Stanford University is committed to equal opportunity through affirmative action in employment and we are especially eager to identify minority persons and women with appropriate qualifications.

Science-Policy Intern - Integrating ecosystem services into decision-making

Intern sought to help consolidate new knowledge and tools at the science-policy interface for ecosystem services; build and synthesize evidence that demonstrates the power of ecosystem service approaches; and, mainstream results by bringing them to the attention of potential users and decision makers.

Specific areas of focus may include:

• mainstreaming ecosystem services into policy and decision-making
• institutional and policy analysis
• scenario development
• connecting ecosystem services to human wellbeing

The successful applicant will have an interdisciplinary background in environmental policy, geography, political economy, and/or ecology. Position requires excellent research and writing skills, with a preference for demonstrated expertise in policy analysis or methods for analyzing case studies. Must be able to work efficiently and independently. Experience with ecosystem services and GIS would be a plus.

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