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Student Research

Information is now available on SOLO about our Summer 2025 research opportunities! Applications will open in December. The priority deadline is February 14, with a final deadline of April 1. 

Learn more:

The Center also has limited part-time research opportunities available during Winter and Spring 2025, related to water and climate resilience and a just energy transition. Learn about these roles and apply by emailing research manager Esther Conrad (esther [at] stanford.edu (esther[at]stanford[dot]edu)) no later than Dec. 8. 


The Bill Lane Center prides itself on being an academic home for Stanford undergraduates. The Center strives to provide students with high-quality, interdisciplinary opportunities and resources. This page lists the two main research programs available to undergraduate students: research assistantships on existing BLC projects and research assistantships for self-designed projects. Students from all undergraduate class years are encouraged to apply for positions. 

The Center's research assistants (RAs) pursue original research with faculty, working full-time for 35+ hours per week for 10 weeks during the summer. Students meet regularly with their mentors to discuss goals and plans for research. The Center's research assistant positions are partially funded by the office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE). Please see the student eligibility requirements

Please note: 

The financial aid office strongly recommends all the stipend recipients to set up the direct deposit immediately if they have not done so.

If you have not received your stipend two or three weeks after processing,  please contact the Student Services Center

A stipend is considered a resource and it may have an impact on a student’s financial aid. To comply with US Department of Education regulations, student payments, awards, prizes, and gifts that are made available to the student because they are a Stanford student, must be reported to the Financial Aid Office. The Financial Aid Office is responsible for the disbursement of stipend funds to undergraduates. For more information, please visit the Financial Aid Office's webpage about the student stipend policy

For questions about the undergraduate research program, please contact research manager Esther Conrad (esther [at] stanford.edu (esther[at]stanford[dot]edu)).

Students interested in applying for any of the Lane Center student programs should join the mailing list.

Collage of the 2024 summer research assistants faces

Spotlight: 2024 student research projects

Our 2024 summer research assistants pursued projects in four broad categories: water and climate resilience; wildfire; energy and transportation; and arts and culture. Learn more about their work and the ongoing research agenda of the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Who should apply?

Lane Center student researchers come from across academic disciplines bringing diverse skills to their projects. At the Lane Center, you can find research opportunities to fit interests in quantitative and qualitative work alike. 

Although our Center often attracts students from the American West, or those who feel a strong connection to the region, the most important factors in the success of prospective research assistants are their curiosity for learning and passion for conducting research. You don't have to be a lifelong Westerner to dig into the region's most pressing issues, and you may even develop a newfound affinity for the richness of Western land, resources and people along the way. Thus, we encourage all students to bring an open-minded approach to their time with us. Our staff works hard to match students to projects they will find both stimulating and fulfilling. 

The Center's work often sits at the intersection of various disciplines. Students should be able (or willing to learn) to analyze problems through various lenses. Students bring skills from across the academic spectrum and apply them to their projects. Data analysis, web-scraping, programming, policy analysis, geospatial mapping, art criticism, photography, and audio/video production are all skills that can make effective BLC researchers.

Meet past research assistants

More about Lane Center research

The Bill Lane Center for the American West is dedicated to advancing the scholarly and public understanding of the past, present, and future of Western North America. In the research space, the Center places an emphasis on issues related to Western governance and policy, and environment and energy in the West. Many of our projects are concerned with questions related to these issues but often go beyond these limits. The Center works hard to incorporate projects related to the art, culture, history, and people of the Western region into its scholarly pursuits.

Meet the research team

What sets our opportunities apart?

The Center's projects engage students throughout the entire process of original research — from design, literature review, and data collection, all the way through to analysis, scholarly writing and production of visual scholarship, such as maps and interactive media. Findings are communicated through peer-reviewed publications, oral presentations, our website and other public-facing media sources.

The Center is committed to providing necessary training to equip our RAs with the tools needed to complete their projects. For example, past RAs have pursued Center-sponsored training on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with the Stanford Geospatial Library. Other students dive deep into large-scale data mining, machine learning and textual analysis projects using data science tools like R and Python. Students have also explored journalistic interviewing and podcast production.

How do you get involved?

Join a BLC-organized project

The Lane Center has a number of ongoing research projects already in motion, and interested students may join an existing project as a research assistant. Faculty Director Bruce Cain sets the Center's multi- and inter-disciplinary research agenda with the intention to attract interest from students across the academic spectrum. View and apply for a summer role with an organized project.

Design your own project

Bill Lane Center research projects can take many shapes. The Center will consider any proposal as long as it relates in some way to the study of the American West. The examples below provide insight into the range of projects former research assistants have completed. Learn more and apply for a self-designed project.

Environmental Journalism Internship

The Bill Lane Center also offers an Environmental Journalism Internship that is not granted a stipend, but which affords students three units of credit from Tom Hayden, director of Stanford's masters program in environmental journalism. 

The environmental journalism intern will work with the Bill Lane Center’s writer in residence, Felicity Barringer, on an environmental journalism project. Editorial interns gain valuable journalistic experience by reporting and writing stories published to our "& the West" magazine. Check out some of the pieces written by previous interns. 

To indicate interest in this program and get more information, please email Felicity at febarr [at] stanford.edu (febarr[at]stanford[dot]edu).

Past student projects

Headshot of Savannah Voth

With an interest in art and poetry, Savannah Voth, '26, created a self-designed project that took inspiration from the western national parks and integrated research on these natural landscapes into original book of illustrated poetry. 

An orange sky filled with wildfire smoke with mountains in the background and dark pine trees in the foreground.

Lilly Salus '26 explored how insurance companies have increased wildfire rates in high-risk areas, frustrating all stakeholders involved.

A student on a mountain bike with a helmet and sunglasses smiles at the camera with the mountains of Colorado in the background.

Bethany Lorden '26 researched poetry written about the Rocky Mountains and wrote poetry of her own that was inspired by her research and travels.

Lee Rosenthal in a green t-shirt smiles at the camera against a backdrop of blue sky and green rolling hills.

Lee Rosenthal '25 attempted to analyze sixteen cities and counties in California to assess their compliance with AB 970 but ran into issues gathering information from online databases.

Cade Cannedy, an undergraduate research assistant since the summer of 2018, started working on an air quality project that would later become his senior thesis. Cade's thesis was awarded the prestigious Firestone Award.

Joyce Tagal worked with the city managers from across the mid-peninsula to study policing practices and room for reform.

In the summer of 2020, Aja Two Crows, Hannah Kelley and Sophie Boyd-Fliegel planned and recorded a podcast to better understand the experience of Native American communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the Summer of 2019, Shiriel King Abramson choreographed a four-part suite of tap dances that captured the sonic richness of natural elements — earth, air, fire and water.

Sarah Ondak spent a summer completing a historical photography project in Ouray, Colorado, a mining town-turned recreation destination.

Max Klotz used support from the Lane Center to complete research for his senior thesis on tourism in National Parks. He traveled to both Yellowstone and Zion National Parks to read through historic documents in the Parks' respective archives. 

Becca Nelson investigates how Foster City, a city built on marshes, tackles sea level rise.

Emily Wilder reports on the mutually beneficial relationship between bees and California almond farms.

Madison Pobis hears from small farmers in California's Central Valley about the future of their access to groundwater. 

Write your own story

Student Profiles

 

There are many ways to get involved with the Lane Center and each student's path will be different.  We invite you to read the stories of previous Lane Center students who shared their Western journeys. You may decide to follow their lead or use their experiences as inspiration to write your own story.

Visit our student profiles page.

Meet the research team

Bruce Cain, Faculty Director


Bruce Cain is a professor of political science and an expert in U.S. politics, particularly the politics of California and the American West. A pioneer in computer-assisted redistricting, he is a prominent scholar of elections, political regulation, and the relationships between lobbyists and elected officials. Professor Cain sets the Center's research agenda and works closely with undergraduate and graduate students. Professor Cain is also a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and at the Precourt Institute for Energy, with which the Lane Center often partners on research projects.

 

Esther Conrad, Research Manager

Headshot of Research Manager Esther Conrad, smiling at the camera wearing a turquoise sweater

Esther Conrad works with the Bill Lane Center’s faculty director to manage the Center’s research programs. She coordinates and contributes to group research projects, liaises with research partners, manages student researchers and postdoctoral scholars, and runs the AmerWest seminar series. Esther has worked for over 20 years in the environmental field, with a focus on environmental policy and governance in the context of water and climate change adaptation. During her PhD studies at UC Berkeley and postdoctoral fellowship at the Water in the West Program at Stanford, Esther conducted research on water governance and climate change adaptation in California. She has analyzed patterns of cross-jurisdictional collaboration among local government agencies to work toward and equitable water management, and the role of state laws, such as California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and the Integrated Regional Water Management Act, in incentivizing collaboration.

Felicity Barringer, Writer-in-Residence

Felicity Barringer joined the Center as writer in residence in September 2016. She is the editor and lead writer for the Center’s “... & the West” blog on western environmental and health issues. She was a national environmental correspondent during the last decade of her 28 years at The New York Times. Barringer provided an in-depth look at the adoption of AB 32, California’s landmark climate-change bill after covering state’s carbon reduction carbon policies and, more recently,  focused on the West’s water challenges. Earlier, Barringer covered the United Nations and worked as a correspondent in Moscow.