The CCE Summer Internship Program aims to provide outstanding Cornell University undergraduate students with the opportunity to work in communities across New York State.
Extension Interns work on projects addressing agriculture, community, environment, nutrition, and youth & families. Interns will work on projects that are developed by faculty members and are placed across New York state in local association offices. Interns will work closely with association educators where they will accomplish the research goals of the summer project. These projects are awarded a $6,000 stipend to help support the research that is completed. These opportunities allow students to explore CCE and the relationship Cornell University and Cooperative Extension have in bringing research from campus to New York state communities.
The CCE Summer Internship Program and its opportunities are made possible through funding provided by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and the College of Human Ecology (CHE). Additionally, in a continued partnership with the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, the CCE Summer Internship Program is able to extend selected internship opportunities to students across Cornell University to help support the Einhorn Center in community-engaged learning.
CCE Summer Internship opportunities are only available to non-graduating Cornell University students who are:
- For CALS projects, students must be enrolled in CALS
- For CHE projects, students must be enrolled in CHE
- For Einhorn Center projects, students must be enrolled at Cornell University
Please contact aad78 [at] cornell.edu (Alyssa Dray) with questions or review the CCE Summer Internship FAQs.
Explore summer internship opportunities with Cornell Cooperative Extension!
Keep up with our interns summer experiences by reading through their summer blogs!
2025 CALS Summer Internships
The Horse Farm Improvement Program (HFIP) aims to improve equine welfare and farm sustainability in New York State. This internship project builds upon the work of a former intern and aims to create a functioning evaluation program and educational resource for NYS equine operations.
Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development (CAWD) and CCE partners have developed methods and tools to assist farms with developing their new employee onboarding programs. This internship is about working with farm employers to develop their onboarding programs with the direct assistance of educators and CCE interns. Interns will assist farms, learn about farm human resource management, and collect data to continue development of the overall onboarding program.
The focus of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of deer management at the community level for reducing densities of nymphal ticks and potential Lyme disease transmission. We will conduct tick drags in communities with 5 or more years of deer culling (removal) and compare those to communities with no deer removal in Onondaga County.
The intern will work and live at a historical lakeside estate in the county now housing the Cornell Biological Field Station. The student will be mentored by field station, Madison County CCE staff and the County Historian to research the residential and academic history of the site. They will assist the County Historian in planning activities including the “History Where you Eat” series culminating in hosting an event at the field station during the summer.
Drones are becoming useful tools in ecological research with their expanded viewing capabilities. The Syracuse area is becoming an important testing ground for new drone applications. This intern will be based at the Cornell Biological Field Station in Madison County just east of Syracuse on Oneida Lake. They will work with aquatic and terrestrial researchers to incorporate drones in ecological research.
We will create several trial and demonstration plots in public growing spaces in New York City, centered around adapting vegetable production to an urban setting through soil management and identifying best-suited varieties.
The intern will learn about soil management, plant nutrition, and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for the control of insects and pathogens. The locations of both the 4-H Camp and the LIHREC are literally across the street and will be convenient to conduct this internship. The living laboratory at the Dorothy P. Flint 4H Camp is an educational facility that is used to supply fresh, nutritious food to the campers. In addition, the intern will assist in the vegetable production at the Camp and work on a "Farm to Table" program which markets fresh produce at the CCE-NC’s urban East Meadow Farm. The intern will be able to use the education that is acquired on a practical level by interacting with consumers at the Farm.
The sustainability of dairy operations in New York State depends greatly on their ability to reduce its environmental footprint while simultaneously reducing the cost of production and increasing yield and milk sales. Improving the economic and environmental sustainability of dairy farms requires development of management tools that help farmers with decisions about forage and grain production, animal nutrition, manure handling, feed storage, and animal care, among others.
Oneida Lake is the 3rd-most fished lake in New York State, making anglers an important part of the Oneida Lake ecosystem both biologically (through harvest) and economically (through expenditures associated with fishing). As such anglers have an important role in influencing management decisions regarding this valuable resource. The intern on this project will collect and analyze information from the human-component of the Oneida Lake ecosystem through interviews of anglers at boat launches upon completion of their fishing trip.
Climate models predict that the northeastern United States will experience more pronounced periods of intense precipitation and short duration flooding. Floodplain region are particularly at risk as increased soil moisture and flooding poses a challenge for vegetable and grain farmers. This summer internship offers a unique opportunity to work with pioneering rice farms in the Hudson River Valley region of New York that will experiment with a flood tolerant crop. The intern will gain invaluable experience in various aspects of rice cultivation (both flooded and drip-irrigation rice systems), from seed preparation to harvesting, and learning about cooperatives and market potential.
The number of commercial cut flower farms in NYS increases from 405-610 from 2017 – 2022, largely because of an increase in open field farming of cut flowers. The rapid increase in operations, particularly as many seem to be beginning farmers, leads to an increased need for CCE faculty to have expertise in cut flower production and marketing.
2025 CHE Summer Internships
The project aims to leverage our lab's research on children's understanding and emotional reactions to GCC and collaborate with COE Early Childhood Educators on curriculum development. Plan a study with Utica School District and Oneida COE on how immigrant children and families respond to GCC and its impacts.
Facilitated by AI, this project builds young people’s capacity to examine data about medical outcomes for themselves. These skills will be designed to complement learning from formal education (e.g., high school curricula). The project will familiarize students with cutting-edge uses of artificial intelligence (AI) models to access and explain technical scientific information to the lay public.
The Food and Nutrition Education in Communities (FNEC) provides nutrition education to limited resource families. The CCE Summer Intern will collaborate with FNEC and staff from CCE of Rensselaer County to conduct stakeholder interviews designed to identify the barriers and facilitators of EFNEP enrollment, participation and completion.
This project will support youth well-being and skill development as part of a summer 4-H experience (the "Cultivating Community" program) in Rochester, NY. The intern will reside in Rochester and be co-mentored by leaders in the 4-H Program at CCE Monroe and the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE) in the College of Human Ecology.
CCE Oneida Library Connection provides portable parenting resources and information to visitors of local community libraries. Project staff are on-site during library story times or other events for participants to be able to ask questions and get information on their child’s development and resources within the community.
The project explores how an existing curriculum designed for parents of young children, The Growing and Learning Together Through Play, can be extended to reach more families and to incorporate a broader range of home activities, from play to meals to bath time. The project also aims to explore how best to partner with parents of young children to consider how to bolster children's engagement and learning in every day home activities.
2025 Einhorn Center Summer Internships
The 4-H STEAM Summer Intern will work as a part of the 4-H Youth Development team at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Niagara County. They will serve as art director for the 4-H STEM Summer Day Camp and will have the opportunity to assist with developing and delivering interactive educational programming with an emphasis on adding art to the current STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum.
The intern will gain exceptional experience in agricultural robotics education through the innovative new gardening robot, AgXRP. The Agricultural Experiential Robotics Platform (AgXRP) is a versatile, open-source educational tool being designed by students in Cornell Cup Robotics to introduce students to precision agriculture, automation, and engineering principles. It integrates robotics technology with sustainable agriculture practices and digital agriculture concepts, delivering practical, hands-on learning opportunities.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County has had a long-standing and supportive relationship with the Shinnecock Indian Nation. This work began more than 40 years ago working with their shellfish hatchery and continues to this day with programs focused on nutrition, education, agricultural practices, shellfish aquaculture and natural resource management. The CCE Marine Program, in particular, has strong ties to the Tribe through ongoing projects relating to shellfish restoration, coastal planning and coastal habitat restoration.
This project will focus on data collection within Wayne County. The data will be used to create GIS maps which will be publicly available and can be used for grant writing, policy making, and program planning within CCE and the county government. The data collected will focus on food insecurity within Wayne County, particularly food deserts.