The Arizona Institute for Resilience's Heat Resilience Initiative addresses the global challenge of extreme heat through research, education, and engagement. The initiative supports and leverages heat research efforts across departments and disciplines at the University of Arizona, including the DOE-funded Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL), the NIHHIS-funded Center for Heat Resilient Communities, the NOAA-funded Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) rural heat resilience component, the CDC-funded Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE), the NIH-funded Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH). 

The initiative also works to develop future collaborative heat resilience research proposals with partners across the U of A campus, and provides undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students interested in the rapidly growing area of heat practice and scholarship with a dedicated space for learning about faculty, degrees, courses, and training opportunities at the university. Finally, the AIR Heat Resilience Initiative works with community partners and decisionmakers in Arizona, across the United States, and beyond to address extreme heat challenges.

Opportunities

Summer Positions: SW-IFL HeatMappers

We are excited to invite you to be a part of something truly impactful – our Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL)! As we progress on this meaningful journey, we are seeking committed students like you to join our team and contribute to the success of this inspiring project.

The SW-IFL, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, seeks to engage students and provide them with high-quality, relevant knowledge capable of spurring and guiding responses to environmental concerns. The SW-IFL is a partnership involving Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and IBM.

We are now offering an opportunity to integrate students as HeatMappers to collaborate on the project with one of our Observation, Modeling, or Resilient Solutions teams and to conduct individual and collaborative research under the direction of SW-IFL researchers and scholars. We are looking for FIVE students to work as HeatMappers as part of the SW-IFL project to get involved in activities based in Tucson during the summer of 2025. The positions require a commitment of 10 weeks, from May 19th to July 28th, 2025. Participants will receive a stipend of $8,000 for their engagement in the work. Applicants must be over 18 and currently in a program of higher ed (community college through graduate programs). International students are eligible. Please see the detailed descriptions of each three position below.

To apply for a position, email (1) your CV, (2) a cover letter, and (3) an indication of which position(s) most interest you (descriptions below) to Prof. Kristi Currans at curransk@arizona.edu by April 11^th.  Those that apply on or before this date will be considered first for these positions.

Job Descriptions:

Position I Description:

Location: Tucson

Available positions: 2

Responsibilities:

The HeatMappers would work with our Modeling team on modeling fossil fuel CO2 sources across cities at the road segment and building scale. This will allow cities to identify hotspots of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, estimate anthropogenic heat flux, and monitor progress towards climate actions over time. Vehicle emissions are one of the largest sources of both greenhouse gases and local pollution in cities. To model this sector, we require "fleet information" (how different types of vehicles are distributed at a particular road segment/location). However, such information is very limited. The HeatMappers will overcome this limitation by using the Hestia traffic app that was developed for this purpose. Students will collect data on counts and types of vehicles at different locations across their city. The student would be supervised by Dr. Anna Kato from the Modeling team at Northern Arizona University (NAU).

Skills:

Research experience

Interest in ongoing participation

Willingness to be working outside (in urban/sub-urban environment)

Students are required to have a driver's license, as they will need to drive around the city for data collection.

 Position II Description:

Location: Tucson

Available position: 1

Responsibilities:

The HeatMappers would work with our Resilient Solutions team to help with work with the community to build on Summer 2024 data collection in Tucson or potentially another part of the SWIFL study region. The student would be supervised by Dr. Mark Kear.

Skills:

Research experience

Spanish speaking (capacity to translate)

Interest in ongoing participation

Position III Description:

Location: Tucson

Available positions: 2

Responsibilities:

The HeatMappers will work with our resilient solutions team to collect data examining the impacts of green infrastructure and trees at bus stations and parking lots. Specifically, our stakeholders at the City were interesting in comparing three parking lots in the Oracle testbed corridor (Target--lots of trees vs. Home Depot/Lowes--no trees). This is often used as an example, and they are interested in measuring the impacts of human comfort across these three cases. Additionally, our local transit agency is interested in gathering heat data at bus stops with different levels of green infrastructure/planting. We believe this work is well suited for the MaRTy cart, and the students would help us to expand the Phoenix data collections into Tucson. In our proposed work, the students would be trained by the ASU team to collect data, and a study design would be prepared by the group of us. The students would then study and interpret the data, developing a brief memo and graphical depictions of the findings for the City. The student would be supervised by Dr. Kristina Currans.

Skills:

Good communication skills

Basic ability in data collection and analysis

Willingness to work as part of a team, collaborating with other students and faculty members

Willingness to be in the field in urban environments

Don’t miss out on this chance to enhance your skills and contribute to impactful projects. Feel free to reach out to curransk@arizona.edu if you have any questions. We look forward to receiving your application and having you as a committed HeatMapper in the SW-IFL project!