Ongoing Projects and Opportunities

  • Island Spotted Skunk Monitoring Project: the UCSB-Smithsonian Scholars, with the help of The Nature Conservancy and the UC Santa Cruz Island Reserve, have deployed non-invasive remote camera trap sets in key habitat areas across Santa Cruz Island. The project is part of a comprehensive ongoing research project on the island spotted skunk. The project goal is to monitor and identify individual skunks in an effort to assess the population status.
  • PanaMex Project: The Pan American Experimental Initiative in Marine Macro-ecology is an experiment to assess gradients in interaction strength, focusing on effects of predation on development of marine fouling communities, at an unprecedented scale — across the latitudes and two oceans of the Americas, including here in Santa Barbara. For more information, please email us.
  • Internships and Fellowships are available to enrolled UCSB-Smithsonian Scholars, specifically©
    • Smithsonian Minority Awards Program: Last year (2018) we had 7-students receive both Summer and Academic year internships. They typically run for 10-weeks and offer a paid stipend. Internships last year included research opportunities at locations across the country and in Panama: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Tropical Plant Assessment Rainforest of Panama, SCBI’s Santa Cruz Island Jay Project, Conservation Genomics Fox Project, Washington DC, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center-Marine Invasion Lab in Edgewater Maryland, SCBI Animal Programs in Front Royal, Virginia and at the Santa Barbara Harbor working with STRI Marine Biologist to assess predator-prey interactions.
    • Post Baccalaureate Research Opportunities (Designed for Scholars who have just graduated): This past year we had three scholars receive a stipend of $500 a week, for 6-month long internships at the Smithsonian. The positions included: Conservation Genomics (SCBI), Marine Invasion Lab (SERC), and Specimen Collections (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History). If you are a Scholar who has recently graduated, we would love to hear from you!
  • Student Worker Positions at UCSB – Are you a UCSB student and a scholar? Are you looking to work 10-15 hours a week? We have employment opportunities at the Office of Education Partnerships. Help us, help other students. Contact the program coordinator to find out more.
  • Lab and Field Research Opportunities – If you are interested in working on a research team, please contact us to find out more about current opportunities. We have both paid and unpaid opportunities that are seasonal.

Contact Info for Program Coordinator:

Please email or call Cristina Soto Balderas
Email: Cristina.Soto.Balderas@ucsb.edu
Phone: 805‐893‐4789