The Ocean Cleanup Foundation

POSTED: 14 February 2024

CLOSING DATE: 30 April 2024

ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

MISSION TO METRICS

The mission of The Ocean Cleanup is to develop advanced technology to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. To do so, we need to assess our technology’s ability to catch plastics in the ocean and to meet our cleanup targets. The steering strategy is crucial to optimize our catch with the shift from passive to active systems.

“Since the garbage patch is highly heterogeneous, actively steering to the hotspots will significantly increase our efficiency” – Yannick Pham, Steering Strategy Manager

THE ASSIGNMENT

The intern will work in the Computational Modeling Team inside the Ocean Department of The Ocean Cleanup, which aims to monitor, valorize, and run models to improve the ability of the company to assess its possibilities to reach its goal. He/she will participate in current or future projects to improve our steering strategy model and our understanding of the plastic transport phenomenon. 

The intern's responsibilities include:

• Improve The Ocean Cleanup’s plastic dispersal model and understanding of plastic accumulation
• Familiarize yourself with the existing Lagrangian plastic dispersal model framework
• Develop a method to parametrize and calibrate meso and submesoscale eddy diffusivity
• Use system 002/03 to measure density data (extraction and camera data)
• Apply sea-surface current analysis techniques to exhibit local convergence candidates (using Lyapunov exponents and Lagrangian coherent structures)
• Get involved in other data science projects:
• Run statistical analysis on the world's largest beach cleanup database to better understand the beaching phenomenon
• Continue the development of a beaching model using data science techniques (Bayesian relief networks, Machine Learning)

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Fluent in English
• Master's or bachelor’s degree in engineering with strong computational skills
• Strong experience in Python, MATLAB, or any other data science programming language (Julia, R…).
• Experience in data science is highly valued
• Knowledge of high-performance computing techniques is a plus

PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Intrinsic motivation to work on our ambitious and meaningful mission
• Able to perform well in a fast-paced and highly challenging environment
• Meticulous, detail-oriented, structured
• Team player, diplomatic 
• An affinity with numbers
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work with tight deadlines

This assignment is supposed to start in early March at the latest, and you will work for 6 to 9 months with our team based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Please note that candidates must be enrolled at a University (Master's/PhD program) throughout the internship. The interns are expected to be available 40 hours/week throughout the internship.

Apply now