Applications for 2024 -25 Summer Internships with WMG through Earth Grant - open now!
WaterWRLD (Water as a platform for Workforce Readiness and Leadership Development) provides University of Arizona students with real-world work experience and community engagement opportunities, all while earning school credit and a paid stipend.
Interns will:
- Increase understanding of community-based conservation and river restoration opportunities for the Santa Cruz River Watershed, as well as engaging on urban ecology and environmental justice issues.
- Build relationships with WMG and other local environmental professionals, and work closely with one or more WMG staff mentors.
- Develop leadership, community outreach, and environmental education skills and experience.
- Complete a 120-150 hours of work during the internship period depending on the term.
- Work at WMG's Living Lab and out on Tucson's rivers and creeks with virtual options for some tasks or if it's not safe to meet in person.
Have Questions?
Check out a recording of an internship information panel on our YouTube channel! Please note that this video speaks specifically to WMG's internship program which usually runs for two semesters from Fall through Spring. While much of the information will be applicable, some may not. For more information, please contact Education Program Director, Julie Regalado at jregalado@watershedmg.org.
Internship Opportunities - currently open through Earth Grant
The Earth Grant program is a year-long leadership development program for a diverse cohort of select UArizona students passionate about environmental and community resilience. Individually, each student is matched with a mentor working in their field of interest for a 5-20 hr/week paid internship. As a cohort, students engage in weekly activities to gain cross-sector leadership skills within a supportive peer group. By the end of the program year, Earth Grant students have contributed to real-world outcomes for people and the planet, gained career-ready leadership and professional skills, and formed lasting relationships within a growing peer-mentor network.
Interns with Wateshed Managment Group work an average of 10 hours/week over the course of two semesters, following the UA academic schedule.
Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Community Conservation Intern (Full position description)
- The Community Conservation Intern provides support for community conservation-based initiatives and projects in primarily underserved neighborhoods across Tucson. A large part of the program is to facilitate workshops with community partners to teach participants how to build a rain garden: a simple, low-cost landscape feature that captures rainfall to support the growth of native shade trees, shrubs, grasses, and wild flowers.
Environmental Education Community Outreach Intern (Full position description)
- The intern will look for opportunities to build on and assist in the educational offerings already happening in WMG’s work, particularly at the Living Lab and engaging children and youth in meaningful experiences towards understanding their relationship with water and the environment where we live.
Restoration Ecology Intern (Full position description)
- The Restoration Ecology intern will be part of a team working primarily on WMG's Beaver Restoration Initiative and Release the Beavers Campaign. Our goal is to restore the ecological and cultural role of the beaver in the binational San Pedro and Santa Cruz basins in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.
Who is Eligible?
Eligible Earth Grant recipients are undergraduate students or accelerated master's program students in their 5th year, in any major, enrolled for at least 6 units of credit at the University of Arizona for Fall 2024, planning on being enrolled in at least 6 credits for Spring 2025, eligible to work in the United States, living in Tucson during the 2024-25 academic year, and passionate about environmental and community resilience. Students with underrepresented identities in environmental fields are encouraged to apply, including students of color, first generation college students, LGBTQ+ students, and students with disabilities.
Earth Grant students commit to participation for the duration of the academic year (both Fall 2024 and Spring 2025), including both working at an internship and consistent participation in weekly cohort meetings/activities thhrough Earth Grant as well as regular meetings/activities at WMG's Living Lab on Fridays, 3-5 pm, during the Fall Semester with their Watershed Management Group Intern-Docent cohort.
Application Instructions
Interested students should apply through Earth Grant. But if they have questions about the internships offered with WMG, they can submit those to jregalado@watershedmg.org
Staff Mentors
Lauren Monheim
River Run Network Program Manager
She/Her
Lauren has a B.S. in Watershed Hydrology and Management from the University of Arizona. As a Tucson native, Lauren has a passion for the environment and the community in this area and wants to continue spreading this excitement for nature, water and people through her work with the River Run Network. Lauren enjoys hiking, drinking coffee and reading in her spare time.
Julie Regalado
Education Program Director
She/They
Julie has over 30 years of experience teaching in experiential, place-based, embodied education both in the US and in Australia, where she lived for fifteen years. Julie made her way to Tucson in 2023, reconnecting to the Sonoran Desert near where she grew up (in San Bernardino, Ca), and the land of her father's family in Sonora and Chihuahua. Early university studies in the sciences and work in a soils science lab evolved into a performing arts focus and Regalado was active in California in the modern dance world. Often working in non-formal settings, Julie brings a perspective encompassing a social-ecological and relational approach towards building more constructive relationships - human and more-than-human. She holds a BA in Liberal Studies from UC Riverside, a MFA in Dance from Mills College, and a MEd in Social Ecology from Western Sydney University, where she also recently completed a M.Res researching how a place-based embodied awareness practice might foster ecological consciousness. In her free time, she explores her new town of Tucson on foot and scrambles over boulders in the Dragoon Mountains. She loves cooking, eating, reading, gardening and speaks passable French and Spanish.
Luis Salgado
Green Infrastructure Project Manager
He/him
Born and raised in the Colorado River Delta region, Luis always wondered why his native hometown of San Luis Río Colorado was named after a river that seldom flowed through there. As a result, Luis completed a B.S. degree in Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona in 2017. During his time at the university, Luis began to understand the complex relationship between rivers and their users, and decided to pursue a career that emphasizes community-centric, ecological approaches to educating the public about environmental issues of the Southwest and natural resource conservation. Luis is fluent in both Spanish and English, and you can find him reading, writing, cooking, or playing drums at home when he’s not digging through crates at record stores or looking for a good place to set up a hammock on top of a nearby mountain.
Catlow Shipek
Sr. Program Director
He/him
Catlow Shipek is a founding member of Watershed Management Group. He received a MSc in Watershed Management from the University of Arizona. Catlow has over 15 years of experience in applied watershed management, planning and policy specializing in urban applications like water harvesting, green infrastructure, stream restoration, and eco-sanitation. Catlow has worked on several successful local policy initiatives including Tucson's Green Streets Active Practice Guidelines, Tucson Water's residential rainwater rebate program, Tucson's residential greywater ordinance revision process, and through the Complete Streets Taskforce the adoption of Tucson's Complete Streets Policy. Catlow has served on the Citizens’ Water Advisory Committee for Tucson Water including Chair of the Conservation & Education subcommittee, Tucson's Complete Streets Coordinating Council, and on the University of Arizona's School of Natural Resource and the Environment's advisory board. Catlow enjoys growing and foraging for food, long mountain trail runs, and finding swimming holes.