Overview
Interns must reside in the U.S. during the entire duration of the internship.
PM ET on Tuesday, January 27, 2026.
Office of Science and Innovation
The Office of Science and Innovation is the nexus of science at EDF, ensuring that the natural and social science that is the backbone for all EDF policy positions is based on the best available information. To be most effective in this role, S&I provides support for all scientists at EDF and fosters relationships with scientists outside the organization. S&I works on projects across all of EDF's mission areas and workstreams, translating natural and social science basic and applied research into actionable ideas for colleagues. The psychological science division within S&I conducts research and analysis for emerging social, cognitive, affective, and behavioral science around environmental issues.
The psychological science team works to understand the variety of people's environmental concerns and priorities, the origins of and resulting motivations of those concerns and priorities, and how to create engaged citizens and activists who protect the environment and all life it sustains, including people. We identify how cognitive and affective processes interact with cultural, societal, and macro-level system influences to explain people’s reactions to environmental problems and proposed solutions. This helps EDF design better interventions and policy solutions and to better prepare advocates for the challenges they may face in their work.
The intern will support two projects. The first focuses on developing internal communications for EDF’s intranet. The intern will draft six blog posts (approximately 500 words each) that summarize recommendations from previous psychological science studies. Each blog will be paired with a lay-friendly report describing the study methods and analyses that informed those recommendations. These reports have already been drafted by the science team; the intern will edit and refine them. Through this work, the intern will gain broad exposure to applied psychological science research at the science-policy interface and practice translating research findings into actionable insights for EDF staff.
In the second project, the intern will work with two EDF scientists on a research effort examining the information needs of the public and policymakers regarding emerging technologies considered as potential climate solutions. The project includes qualitative responses, survey data, and experimental studies. The intern will help refine and apply a coding protocol for open-ended qualitative responses that combines large language model tools with traditional human coding. They will integrate coded qualitative data with survey and experimental datasets and contribute to the development of statistical models used to test study hypotheses. Through these two projects the intern will explore why people may be overly optimistic about certain large-scale, technology-based climate solutions and what might help shift attitudes and beliefs toward a more realistic understanding. The intern will report to the Lead Senior Social Behavioral Scientist.
