Posting Title

Graduate (Year-Round) Intern: Geospatial Data Science Modeling and Analysis

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Location

CO - Golden

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Position Type

Intern (Fixed Term)

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Hours Per Week

40

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Working at NLR

NLR is located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado is the nation's primary laboratory for energy systems research and development.

Join the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), where world-class scientists, engineers, and experts are accelerating energy innovation through breakthrough research and systems integration. From our mission to our collaborative culture, NLR stands out in the research community for its commitment to an affordable and secure energy future. Spanning foundational science to applied systems engineering and analysis, we focus on solving complex challenges to deliver advanced, secure, reliable, and cost-effective energy solutions. Our work helps strengthen U.S. industries, support job creation, and promote national economic growth.

At NLR, you'll find a mission-driven environment supported by state-of-the-art facilities, multidisciplinary research teams, and strong collaborations with industry, academia, and other national laboratories. We offer robust professional development opportunities, and a competitive benefits package designed to support your career and well-being.

Job Description

The Geospatial Data Science (GDS) team within the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) is seeking a 6–12-month intern to support modeling and analysis. The GDS group conducts research at the intersection of energy deployment, big data science, and geospatial modeling and visualization. Our team of researchers develops and applies geospatial algorithms and methods to evaluate the deployment potential for energy technologies, including geothermal, hydropower, transmission, bioenergy, wind, and solar. Geospatial modeling at NLR enables detailed techno-economic assessment, capacity expansion, and power systems modeling of energy resources under a variety of regulatory, sociopolitical, and environmental factors from local to continental scales.

The successful intern candidate will support a large and diverse modeling portfolio with activities involving geospatial analyses, literature reviews, cartography, scientific programming, and tasks focused on data preparation, processing, and validation. This position will assist geospatial scientists in developing novel analytical solutions to complex challenges in energy siting, deployment, and adoption. Candidates should be interested in working in an interdisciplinary field, together with geospatial data scientists, software developers, and policy analysts, which will require excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

Duties will include:

• Manipulating multiple data sources, models, and software tools with scientific and engineering workflows for decision support and data analysis
• Preparing and processing geospatial data using open-source desktop software and programmatic approaches
• Conducting background research on data sets, current modeling approaches, and existing tools
• Developing literature reviews under the guidance of research scientists
• Programming and scripting in Python to conduct analysis and visualize data
• Working in distributed computing environments including internal servers, NREL’s high-performance computing (HPC) system and the Cloud

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Basic Qualifications

Minimum of a 3.0 cumulative grade point average.

Undergraduate: Must be enrolled as a full-time student in a bachelor’s degree program from an accredited institution.
Post Undergraduate: Earned a bachelor’s degree within the past 12 months. Eligible for an internship period of up to one year.

Graduate: Must be enrolled as a full-time student in a master’s degree program from an accredited institution.
Post Graduate: Earned a master’s degree within the past 12 months. Eligible for an internship period of up to one year.
Graduate + PhD: Completed master’s degree and enrolled as PhD student from an accredited institution.

Please Note:
• Applicants are responsible for uploading official or unofficial school transcripts, as part of the application process.
• If selected for position, a letter of recommendation will be required as part of the hiring process.
• Must meet educational requirements prior to employment start date.

* Must meet educational requirements prior to employment start date.

Additional Required Qualifications

• Must have comple