Back Cross-Cutting Agricultural Analysis Intern

About the Program

This internship is hosted within WRI’s Data Lab, the organization’s core data innovation and product delivery unit. The Data Lab supports work across Institute — including the Food, Land, and Water (FLW) Program and Land & Carbon Lab—by providing technical infrastructure, geospatial analytics, and applied data science. The Land and Forest initiatives and the Supply Chains Hub within FLW aim to conserve and restore forests and other ecosystems critical to people, nature, and the climate. This internship will contribute to those efforts by supporting agricultural and forest-monitoring analytics through data labeling and geospatial workflows.

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days per month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

What you will do:

You will be responsible for integrating equity into your work.

• Assist in the development and application of agricultural field boundary datasets to support local use cases in Latin America and Africa
• Support annotation and digital sketching tasks to generate training datasets for deep learning models for these use cases
• Gain experience working within a global environmental NGO on geospatial data innovation
• Contribute to models at the field boundary level, such as yield estimation, natural conversion, and/or supply chain risk assessment
• Collaborate with a distributed, international team of GIS analysts, researchers, and data scientists
• Work across WRI’s country offices to apply spatial insights to sustainability, food security, and land use challenges

  You will be supported by data scientists and land use specialists in the Data Lab, Food Land and Water Program, and Land and Carbon Lab. You will report to the Agricultural Data Scientist in the Data Lab.

  Internship Learning Outcomes:

  • Learn to annotate and create high-quality polygon datasets for deep learning model training.
  • Expand knowledge of agricultural practices and how to characterize them through analysis.

    You will be embedded within WRI's Data Lab, the core technical unit providing strategy, infrastructure, and innovation for data-intensive projects. You will specifically support efforts to expand and apply agricultural field boundary data and analytics to country office initiatives in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Kenya. This work bridges GIS, agriculture, and sustainability, supporting high-impact projects ranging from identifying deforestation-free production zones to improving smallholder crop yield mapping.

    Internship Duties:

    Labeling and Annotation (60%):

    • Use digital tools to annotate field boundaries and agricultural features in satellite imagery (Sentinel-2, Planet)
    • Follow structured standards and quality control practices for training and validation data generation
    • Prioritize labeling tasks across use cases in Colombia, Mexico, Kenya, and Brazil
    • Collaborate with experts from WRI’s Toolkit for Traceability (TkT) and partner research groups

      GIS Analysis and Content Development (30%):

      • Assist with GIS processing of field boundaries and land cover datasets using tools like Geospatial Python (geopandas, GDAL, rasterio), ArcPro, and Google Earth Engine for supply chains, cadastral dataset analysis, land use analysis, and other use cases
      • Conduct spatial analysis to support country-office needs (e.g., crop identification, agricultural frontier mapping, bioeconomy analysis)
      • Contribute to simple data visualizations and cartographic products for internal and external use

        Documentation (10%):

        • Contribute to documentation of workflows and help build reproducible annotation pipelines
        • Engage with WRI country office staff to understand analytical needs and translate them into labeling or GIS tasks

          What you will need:

          • Currently pursuing or recently completed a degree in agriculture, geographic information systems, remote sensing, economics, international development, natural resource management, environmental studies, or a field related to forestry, sustainability and conservation research areas of WRI (graduate program preferred, but undergraduate welcome). Coursework in geospatial analysis or data science is required.
          • Familiarity with GIS software (QGIS or ArcGIS) and basic spatial data formats
          • Interest or experience in digital sketching, labelling, and annotation work
          • Exposure to Python, or JavaScript in Google Earth Engine (GEE) for geospatial analysis
          • Creativity, adaptivity, and a genuine interest in sustainable agriculture and land use
          • Experience in time series analysis, geospatial agricultural analysis and remote sensing data
          • Written and spoken proficiency in English; Spanish or Portuguese is preferred; French is a plus.

            Compensation

            The pay for this internship opportunity is $20/hour for undergrads; $22/hour for graduates and $24/hour for PhD students.

            Length of Contract:

            This is a full-time, 3-month internship with a flexible start and end date.

            Location:

            📚 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗝𝗼𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗡 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯! 🌍🤝 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗡 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗨𝗡𝗛𝗖𝗥, 𝗪𝗙𝗣, 𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗙, 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗦𝗦, 𝗨𝗡𝗙𝗣𝗔, 𝗜𝗢𝗠 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀! 🌐

            ⚠️ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰: 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐖!

            • This is a hybrid internship that will be based out of our Washington D.C. office.
            • You will be required to work in the Washington DC office at least 8 days per month.

              How to Apply:
              
              Please submit a resume with a cover letter by July 16, 2025. Applicants must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered. We may close for applications sooner if we receive a high volume of applications from qualified candidates.

              About Us:

              World Resources Institute works to improve people’s lives, protect and restore nature and stabilize the climate. As an independent research organization, we leverage our data, expertise and global reach to influence policy and catalyze change across systems like food, land and water; energy; and cities. Our 2,000+ staff work on the ground in more than a dozen focus countries and with partners in over 50 nations.

              Internships at WRI are learning experiences designed for current students, recent graduates, and other candidates who wish to gain knowledge about a specific area of our work. We strive to attract diverse, intellectually driven candidates who have a passion for sustainability and development. WRI provides many internship opportunities throughout the year in all our programs.

              
              WRI is committed to advancing gender, racial, and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices.

              
              Our mission and values:

              WRI’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

              Our values are shared ideals that bind us together: Integrity, Innovation, Urgency, Independence, Respect.

              Our culture:

              WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission, including equal opportunities in employment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, caste, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, or protected Veteran status.

              Our team in Human Resources carefully reviews all applications.

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