Cascadia Research is a private non-profit research organization founded in 1979. Cascadia receives grants and contracts, primarily from government agencies, to pursue research primarily on marine mammals. Cascadia also makes educational presentations to a variety of audiences; from technical talks to scientists at international conferences to presentations to elementary school children.  Based in downtown Olympia, Washington, Cascadia has conducted field research in the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawai‘i, Mexico, Costa Rica, and along the Pacific coast of Central America. Cascadia has taken on interns, graduate students and undergraduate volunteers for over 40 years. Although we study many marine mammal species, most of our current work is focused either on gray, blue, humpback, and fin whales along the west coast of North America, or a variety of species of odontocetes (e.g., false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales) in Hawai‘i.

Cascadia Research takes on graduate students that are interested in marine mammal research and/or thinking about marine mammal research as a field of study, and works collaboratively with them to develop graduate projects that match the student’s skillsets and interests. Depending upon the student’s background, experience, skills, and schooling as well as their graduate program’s degree requirements, different paths for the internship may apply. Some students may be asked to do a three-month initial internship with us similar to undergraduates as a way for Cascadia to get to know the individual and for the individual to become familiar with our research and what projects may be of interest to them. After the three month period, a project could be selected if the candidate shows promise, engagement, and dedication. However, other students may come to Cascadia with more relevant and direct experience with marine mammal research, and may be able to start more quickly on a specific research project. For graduate programs where data collection is not a requirement, Cascadia offers a wide range of already available datasets. Cascadia looks for hard working, independent learners with great communication skills, a strong foundation in statistics, and experience with writing results of scientific investigations. Proficiency in MATLAB, R/RStudio, and/or ArcGIS/QGIS is preferred. An objective for working with graduate students is to be able to produce publishable work.

Additional details about graduate positions with Cascadia are available on our website at https://cascadiaresearch.org/about/interns/

To view our recent publications, please visit https://cascadiaresearch.org/publications/

Contact:

Annette Harnish, aharnish@cascadiaresearch.org