Application Deadline: 5:00 PM ET on Tuesday, January 27, 2026.

(Important: please see the Requirements tab of this posting to ensure that you submit all necessary application materials.)

Job Title: Atkinson Intern, Petrochemicals
Program/Department: Healthy Communities

Job Description: EDF internships provide high-quality experiences (including relevant projects and opportunities for networking) which create a foundation for anyone who is serious about pursuing an environmental career. 

Program/Department Overview: EDF’s Healthy Communities Focus area is committed to improving the public’s health by dramatically reducing exposures to and health impacts of toxic chemicals and air pollution among communities and individuals that bear the greatest burden of exposure and/or health risk. By advancing scientific insights, policies, and market-based leadership and working with diverse partners and collaborators from companies, researchers, and community-based groups to government agencies and elected officials, we seek to make evident inequities in chemical- and pollution-related health impacts, and to develop, support and implement solutions that promote healthy communities and individuals.

EDF’s Transform Petrochemicals initiative aims to improve the health and wellbeing of communities on the fenceline of industrial petrochemical facilities through community-driven solutions. The team is focused on stopping the buildout of the petrochemical industry by strategically leveraging our scientific, policy and advocacy expertise and capacity to support community partners’ “site fights” with actionable data insights and scientific analytical support. As the Trump Administration is rolling back critical public health safeguards, we are defending in court and through the regulatory process critical federal regulations under the Clean Air Act, including the “HON rule” – designed to reduce toxic emissions from over 200 petrochemical facilities nationwide – and deploying strategic communications to elevate the harms of rolling back pollution protections and counter industry misinformation. 

Overall Function: The intern will conduct landscape assessments and research that support our defense of key air toxics rules like the HON rule, data translation to fenceline communities, and our advocacy against the false solution of so-called “advanced recycling” (burning of waste plastics). The intern should leave this internship with a deeper understanding of the importance of community engagement in shaping advocacy and policy that affects frontline communities, federal and state air toxics policy, and solutions that can both decarbonize and detoxify industrial facilities. They will report to a Project Manager on the Healthy Communities team.