Summer Research Intern - State-Level Critical Minerals Policies and Actions

Working with Beia Spiller (Fellow), the intern will study various policies and actions made by U.S. states regarding critical mineral supply chains and the role that states play in contributing to the domestic goal of industrial policy within the mineral space. Specifically, the team plans to learn about and document what U.S. states have done to incentivize the development of critical mineral supply chains- from extraction to battery and magnet manufacturing. Then the team plans to quantitatively analyze the effectiveness of the states’ actions. Depending on the intern’s experience and the project timeline, the intern would contribute to one or both tasks. By the end of the summer, the intern would collaborate with the team on an interactive map tool to view state policies and/or a written product.

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.

FAQs

Education level: By and large, RFF summer research internships are geared toward graduate students (either Masters or PhD), although some openings are available to advanced undergraduates. In the past, some graduate-level interns have also chosen to continue collaborating with RFF on academic journal articles beyond their paid internships. Please see individual job descriptions (linked above) for specific education requirements of the various roles.

Compensation: All RFF internships are paid. We offer a sliding pay scale for interns based on the level of completion in their degree programs, ranging from $17.95 per hour to $26 per hour.

Multiple applications: If you are interested in more than one internship project, please feel free to apply to more than one project. Please note that each project may have different requirements, so please review the PDF linked for each project for all details.