Research Intern

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Job Description

Undergraduate/Graduate Research Internship (BS/MS/PhD Level)

Advanced Seismo-Acoustic Waveform and Event Processing and Pipeline Development

Location: Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reno, Nevada (or Remote/Hybrid)

Duration: Summer (10-12 weeks, flexible)
Mentor: Dr. Cleat Zeiler

The Seismology 4 All STEM effort at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) invites applications for research internships focused on the development of advanced, data-driven systems that enable seismology workflows for all education levels. This opportunity is open to highly motivated students with strong technical backgrounds and an interest in solving complex, real-world problems at the intersection of software engineering, data science, and algorithm design.

We are seeking to recruit one undergraduate student for this internship.

The project involves designing and implementing scalable, intelligent platforms that integrate structured data, user interaction, and adaptive decision-making logic. The goal is to develop a data workflow for implementation in High Schools that connect students to local seismic activity. Much of the software is already developed, but ease of access to data and sharing results for collaborative science needs to be coordinated.

Research Scope

Interns will contribute to the design, development, and evaluation of seismo-acoustic work flows, including:

Development of structured data models to enable rapid analysis Design and implementation of algorithmic matching, ranking, or recommendation methods Backend system development for scalable data processing and interaction Integration of real-time system components and performance optimization Data-driven evaluation and iterative improvement of system performance

Key Responsibilities

Contribute to system architecture design and core development Implement and test algorithms and backend components, Work with databases, APIs, and cloud-based infrastructure, Perform data analysis, benchmarking, and system optimization, Collaborate on improving system performance and scalability.

Required Qualifications

• Current undergraduate in:
  Computer Science, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Geosciences or related fields
• Strong background in:
  Programming (Python, C++, JavaScript, or similar), Data Structures, algorithms, and system design
• Solid foundation in data structures, algorithms, and system design

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with machine learning, recommendation systems, or large-scale data systems
• Experience with backend frameworks (Node.js, Django, FastAPI, etc.)
• Experience with databases (SQL/No
  
  SQL)
• Experience to cloud platforms (AWA, GCP, Azure)
• Experience with Seismo-Acoustic systems and distributed architectures

Salary

Undergraduate Students: $20-25/hour, Master's Students: $23-28/hour, PhD Students: $25-30/hour

Schedule
:
Summer (10-12 weeks), flexible hours and potential to continue during fall semester if scheduling permits

For more information
, please contact: cleat.zeiler

Exempt
No

Full-Time Equivalent
47.5%

Required Attachment(s)

Please submit a resume

Posting Close Date

Note to Applicant

Applicants should fully describe their qualifications and experience with specific reference to each of the minimum and preferred qualifications. The search committee will use this information during the initial review of application materials.

References will be contacted at the appropriate phase of the recruitment process based on…