Spring 2023 Student Research Opportunities
The Climate School is offering three recent research assistant opportunities through the Spring 2023 semester. Students from Columbia will have the option to function research assistants on projects related to climate and sustainable development and the environment with distinguished faculty and researchers on the leading edge of this burgeoning field. Each research position is described below.
Students who’re chosen for a position will likely be expected to take part in the Climate School Student Research Showcase in Spring 2023.
Position title: Effects of flooding and post-flood disaster assistance on equity
Position type: Undergraduate research assistant. While research assistant positions at Columbia are generally awarded to graduate students, the undergraduate research assistant program as a substitute goals to present undergraduates with a novel opportunity to be involved in research at a high level and to realize useful experience and skills for his or her future academic and skilled careers. The successful applicant will work directly with faculty on projects on a part-time basis.
Who’s eligible: Full-time Columbia undergraduate students are eligible to use. Positions are funded at a rate of $21.50/hour, 8-10 hours per week, February through May 2023 (a maximum of 120 hours). Please note: Barnard students, Teachers College students and graduate students usually are not eligible for the undergraduate RA program. Decisions will likely be made shortly after the deadline.
Department: Center for Climate Systems Research
Project research objectives: (1) Investigate the consequences of flooding on equity. We are going to compare the change over time in socio-economic outcomes corresponding to incomes, education, and racial composition in areas that were flooded by Hurricane Sandy in Latest York City to the change in similar areas that weren’t flooded to research how flooding affected outcomes amongst residents, and neighborhood gentrification or decline. (2) Use variation in post-flood disaster assistance inside flood-affected areas to research the distribution of assistance and the equity of its effects on livelihoods. (3) If time allows, draft an agent-based model of flood recovery.Â
Anticipated tasks: The RA will: conduct a literature review; compile and process data from the American Community Survey; implement propensity rating matching to pick out an appropriate control group of census tracts to check to tracts that were flooded; implement panel data evaluation; help visualize the outcomes and potentially co-author a paper for peer review. If time and skills allow, begin to program an agent-based model based on the empirical results. The RA is required to assist perform each of the above tasks, that are essential to achieving the objectives.
Skills required: Strong knowledge of econometrics, including panel data methods. Experience with data evaluation. Facility with at the least one statistical evaluation software corresponding to Stata, R, or Matlab. Excellent attention to detail. Some data visualization skills. Excellent organization, time management, and communication skills. Some familiarity with programming agent-based models can be helpful but is just not essential.
To use: Complete the net application available HERE by Wednesday, January 18 at 11:55pm.Â
Contact Yana Zeltser (yzeltser@climate.columbia.edu) with questions.
Position title: Sea-surface waves within the proximity of Antarctic ice shelves impacts ice shelf stability
Project description: Antarctic ice shelves have gotten increasingly vulnerable to warming oceans and enhanced basal melting. Enhanced sea ice melting and its large temporal variability causes ocean waves to succeed in closer to the ice shelves. These waves dampen as they hit the ice shelves thereby transferring their energy to the ice shelves. The stress transferred by the waves have been identified to cause fractures on the ice shelves. As well as, the waves also cause overturning circulation near the ice shelves and convey warmer water closer to the ice shelf bottom. This effect enhances basal melting, which is a major source of ice shelf mass loss in Antarctica. On this work, the coed will use distant sensing data from Sentinel to calculate variability in ocean surface wave heights along the Antarctic Peninsula, and Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers within the Amundsen Sea sector. That is an interdisciplinary project on a really upcoming and necessary topic.Â
The scholar will gain expertise in handling distant sensing data, in addition to understanding of how Antarctic ice shelves interact with sea ice and the encircling ocean. Quantitative skills and proficiency in Matlab/Python is required.Â
Position type: Departmental research assistant
Who’s eligible: Full-time Columbia graduate students are eligible to use. Salary for the position is $3,000 (paid semi-monthly) for a maximum of 140 hours from February through May 2023. Please note that undergraduate and Teachers College students usually are not eligible. Decisions will likely be made shortly after the deadline.
To use: Complete the net application available HERE by Wednesday, January 18 at 11:55pm.
Contact Cari Shimkus (cshimkus@climate.columbia.edu) with questions.
Position title: Developing an integrated cybernetic infrastructure for archaeological collections from Madagascar
Project description: We seek a departmental research assistant with experience in database construction and computer programming using SQL (or other database languages/programs corresponding to Microsoft Access). The research assistant will likely be chargeable for working with the PI and her lab to construct a database for archaeological collections currently stored within the Olo Be Taloha lab within the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Archaeological collections were developed over the past decade through surveys and excavations in southwest Madagascar. Major research questions concentrate on human-environment interactions and human response to climate change.Â
Position type: Departmental research assistant
Who’s eligible: Full-time Columbia graduate students are eligible to use. Salary for the position is $3,000 (paid semi-monthly) for a maximum of 140 hours from February through May 2023. Please note undergraduate and Teachers College students usually are not eligible. Decisions will likely be made shortly after the deadline.
To use: Complete the net application available HERE by Wednesday, January 18 at 11:55pm.
Contact Cari Shimkus (cshimkus@climate.columbia.edu) Â with questions.
