MISSION TO METRICS

The mission of The Ocean Cleanup is to develop and scale 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, to meet our cleanup targets effectively. The steering strategy is crucial to optimize our catch.

“Since the garbage patch is highly heterogeneous, actively steering to the hotspots will significantly increase our efficiency” – Bruno Sainte-Rose, Lead Computational Modeler.

THE ASSIGNMENT

The intern will work in the Computational Modelling Team inside the Ocean Department of The Ocean Cleanup, which aims to monitor, valorize and run models to improve the ability of the organization 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:

• Familiarize yourself with the existing Lagrangian plastic dispersal model
• Develop a method to parametrize mesoscale eddy diffusivity using drifter data
• Calibrate the eddy diffusivity coefficient of the plastic dispersal model
• Use density data from System 002

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
• Build regression models to predict plastic heterogeneity using different proxies

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

Starting from:

Aug/Sept

Work permit needed:

European Union

A valid European Union work permit is highly preferred for this position. However, feel free to send an open application so we can contact you if an opportunity arises in your country.