Summer Research Intern - Power Sector Model Development

Program Description

Do you want to begin a career in economics or policy research? Are you interested in contributing to impactful, balanced research that is aimed at improving environmental, energy and natural resource decisions? A summer research internship with Resources for the Future (RFF) might be right for you.

The RFF summer internship program provides an opportunity for students to prepare for careers that engage in rigorous, policy-relevant research. Interns are essential members of RFF’s Research and Policy Engagement team; they are responsible for providing technical support that, under the direction of RFF Fellows, allows for the production of compelling and impactful research that aligns with RFF’s mission of improving environmental, energy and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement.

At RFF, interns will have the opportunity to connect with researchers and other staff members through seminars, coffee chats, and RFF staff events. Further, the internship co-coordinators will organize an external intern event near the beginning of the summer to foster DC-wide connections with interns from other environmental organizations. The internship program will culminate with presentations from interns about their summer projects and an end-of-summer celebration.

The internship program will run June 15–August 21, 2026. Start or end dates for individual interns can be adjusted as needed. All internships will be conducted in RFF’s offices in Washington, DC.

RFF is also able to host a limited number of summer interns who are funded by their universities and study relevant topics like environmental economics or environmental policy research. Please feel free to contact [email protected] with any questions.

Power Sector Model Development

Working with Aaron Bergman (Fellow) and McKenna Peplinski (Senior Research Associate II), the intern will support the RFF modeling team that contributes to the Engineering, Economic, and Environmental Electricity Simulation Tool (E4ST), an open-platform power sector model that simulates impacts of environmental and energy policies on the electricity or power sector. The intern will help develop new capabilities, improve policy representations, and increase model flexibility and configurability. If time, the intern may also contribute to a policy analysis studying how demand growth from electrification trends and data centers could impact the power sector. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students.