Research Internships

Are you keen to earn credit points towards your Science electives?  Have you considered enrolling in one of our Research Internship subjects?

Every session, Science Academics offer Research Internships for credit.  Not only will you get great Research experience, but you can gain credit towards your degree at the same time!

If you are in your second or third year and are working at a credit level or better, then you are eligible to apply for a Research Internship which will give you the opportunity to gain experience “at the bench” or “in the field” working alongside active researchers in the Faculty.

Pre-requisites

The prerequisites for SCIE292 are 24 credit points of Science Schedule subjects, completed at a Credit level or better, and completion of 48 credit points.

The prerequisites for SCIE392 are 24 credit points of 200-level Science Schedule subjects, completed at a Credit level or better, and completion of 96 credit points.

Requirements of an Internship

The basic components of an Internship are as follows:

• (70%)  SCIE292 students commit to completing 100 hours of laboratory and/or field work.  SCIE392 students commit to completing 120 hours of laboratory and/or field work.
• (10%)  Completion of OH&S induction and risk assessment for work to be conducted.
• (5%)  Analytical reports for a series of 6 research presentations (research seminars, posters, or published papers)
• (15%)  End-of-project paper critically reflecting on outcomes in relation to research objectives set at start of internship

How to organise an Internship

Organise the internship yourself

1. Identify an Academic Staff member whose research interests appeal to you.  You can find their research interests in the grey pages of your Science Students’ Guide or click here to view the Students' Guide online.
2. Contact the staff member to see if he / she would be interested in supervising an internship for you.
3. Once you have identified a supervisor and a project, visit the Faculty of Science Office (Building 41, Room 258) to enrol in the subject.  The Faculty Officer will confirm your eligibility to enrol in the subject and request that you complete an Academic Approval Form, which will need to be signed off by the Associate Dean.
4. Download the Research Internship Student Information document (PDF 32KB) and prepare a plan for your Internship with your supervisor.
5. Complete the Internship form (2 page attachment), get it signed off by your supervisor(s) and the Head of your Academic Unit and return it to the Faculty of Science Office (Building 41, Room 258).  This form should be submitted to the Faculty Office by the end of Week 3.

Apply for an advertised topic

1. You will be sent a SOLS message a few weeks before session start to let you know that the following session's topics have been posted on this site.  Internships are available every session.
2. Review the topics and if you see one that appeals to you, lodge an application with the Faculty Officer.
3. Your application must include the names of two academic referees who can be contacted to discuss your suitability for the project and up to three topics in order of preference.  Applications will be due approximately 2 weeks before session start.
4. You will be advised whether or not you have been offered a place in an Internship approximately 1 week before session start and will have 3 days to accept or decline your offer.
5. You will then need to visit the Faculty of Science Office (Building 41, Room 258) to enrol in the subject.  You will need to complete an Academic Approval Form and get it signed off by the Associate Dean.
6. As soon as you accept your offer you should download the Research Internship Student Information document (PDF 32KB) and prepare a plan for your Internship with your supervisor.
7. Complete the Internship form (2 page attachment), get it signed off by your supervisor(s) and the Head of your Academic Unit and return it to the Faculty of Science Office (Building 41, Room 258).  This form should be submitted to the Faculty Office by the end of Week 3.

Spring Session 2008 Topics

Young people: a creative asset for the Illawarra?

The successful intern will work with Associate Professor Chris Gibson and a team of PhD and honours students on a new government-funded project examining creative assets for regional development and planning in the Illawarra region. Creative assets include new growth industries like music, film, design and architecture, as well as cultural pastimes, tourism and the arts. The specific sub-project examines youth cultures and activities in the region. The intern will assist the research team in relevant data searches and analysis.

• Academic Supervisor: Associate Professor Chris Gibson
• Direct Supervisors: Associate Professor Chris Gibson and Andrew Warren
• Prerequisites: This internship will suit a human geography student who has completed EESC104 and either EESC205 or EESC307. Those with a GIS/spatial science focus may also apply for this internship and the orientation of the project can be altered towards manipulation of GIS data - in which case a strong result in EESC204 is essential.

Weed invasions: How do they come to dominate?

The student would be involved in ongoing research into weed ecology being undertaken in the lab, but will also undertake a separate experiment investigating soil-based chemical warfare by weeds. This will involve obtaining extracts from roots of weeds and testing these extracts for their impact on native species germination. This work will form part of an extensive global research project involving South Africa and Portugal.

• Academic Supervisor: Associate Professor Kris French
• Prerequisites: This internship will suit students who have completed BIOL251 and STAT252. Students enrolled in STAT252 for Spring Session 2008 will also be considered for this internship.

Spatial data processing to assess impact of fire extent

This project will significantly contribute to the research aims of a multi-disciplinary group of researchers investigating the impacts of fire as disturbance events to the natural and human environments. Unrectified aerial photography flown in 2002 after the 2001/02 fires requires rectification and mosaicing to form an essential set of baseline data for further analysis. While the student will be expected to conduct this preprocessing on selected sets of photographs, there is also the opportunity to conduct analysis using the processed imagery, for example, investigating the degree of fire penetration into the urban zone, or the alignment between imagery and mapped fire scars. The student will obtain a range of spatial skills working to transform raw data into datasets ready for analysis, including: scanning, orthorectification, and image enhancement techniques in an operational environment to meet accuracy specifications, in addition to GIS analysis techniques to obtain results which will directly feed into the research context. 

• Supervisors: Dr Laurie Chisholm and Dr Owen Price
• Prerequisites: Students must have completed EESC204 as a minimum requirement.

Decadal land cover change assessment

Time-series aerial photography has been obtained for a coastal study area known to be impacted by an increase in the number of residents known as “seachangers”. This internship project will assist a multi-disciplinary team of human and physical geographers to determine land cover change over time. EESC204 is required as a prerequisite, whereby the student will learn a new technique to use heads-up digitising and develop a parent-child relationship between time-series photographs to retrospectively map land cover change. The student will also have the opportunity to analyse land cover change over time in the context of parcelisation changes making a significant contribution to the research group. 

• Supervisors: Dr Laurie Chisholm and Dr Nicholas Gill
• Prerequisites: Students must have completed EESC204 as a minimum requirement.

If you have any questions regarding the Research Internships program, please contact the Faculty Officer on (02) 4221 3481.

Last reviewed: 18 February, 2008