Cascadia Research Collective 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.

Cascadia Research takes on students in graduate programs that are interested in marine mammal research and/or are thinking about marine mammal research as a field of study. Depending upon the student’s background, experiences, skills, and schooling different paths for the internship may apply. Some students may be asked to do a three-month initial internship with us 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 in marine mammal research and maybe able to start more quickly on a specific research project. Research projects are typically tailored to suit each individual student’s interests and skillsets, and have included a wide variety of topics ranging from examinations of population structure and behavior to evaluations of body condition and human impacts on threatened populations of cetaceans. For graduate programs where data collection is not a requirement, Cascadia offers a wide range of already available datasets. Fieldwork opportunities for graduate students are extremely limited, and students can expect the majority of their time to be spent in the office working on data analysis. Cascadia looks for hard working independent learners with great communication skills, a strong foundation in statistics, and experience with writing results of scientific investigations. Having a proficiency in MATLAB, R/R Studio, and/or ArcGIS/QGIS is preferred, but not necessary. An objective for working with graduate students is to be able to produce publishable works.

For additional details about graduate student positions and to see examples of previous graduate student work at Cascadia, visit https://cascadiaresearch.org/about/interns/

Contact Annette Harnish with your interest at: aharnish@cascadiaresearch.org or 253-486-8415