Geospatial and Earth-Observation Intern

Home-based (remote) or Bangkok, Thailand

4-6 months

Org. Setting and Reporting The Environment and Development Division is seeking one intern for a minimum of four months (preferably six, the maximum internship duration) to support its programme of satellite-based environmental analytics for cities in Asia and the Pacific, with a particular focus on urban heat, land subsidence, and air-quality analysis using open Earth-observation data. The internship is UNPAID and full-time. Interns work five days per week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in the department or office to which they are assigned. A fully remote (home-based) arrangement is possible, subject to approval. The work is Python- and GIS-intensive and draws on open Earth-observation sources (Sentinel-1/2, ECOSTRESS, GEMS, FIRMS, Pandonia), with a strong emphasis on reproducibility and on validating derived values against the published scientific literature. The intern will primarily support Earth-observation data preparation, geospatial analysis, validation, and cartographic quality assurance linked to ongoing environmental analytics initiatives. Daily responsibilities will depend on the individual's background and the internship period. Duties may include, but are not limited to: 1. Assemble and quality-assure satellite and geospatial inputs, including building download manifests, verifying spatial and temporal coverage, and screening for cloud, coherence and data-quality flags (30%) 2. Support the onboarding of new cities into config-driven pipelines, including sourcing administrative boundaries and population/exposure layers, authoring city configurations, and running screening analyses under supervision (25%) 3. Conduct validation and reality-check work, including comparing derived values against published literature ranges, compiling ground-truth reference data, and preparing comparison tables and method-validation notes (25%) 4. Support InSAR analysis for land subsidence where the candidate's background allows, including coherence diagnosis, SBAS/PS reconciliation, GNSS absolute-tie research, and preparation of supporting figures and maps to UN cartographic standards (20%)

To qualify for an internship with the United Nations Internship Programme, applicants must, at the time of application, meet one of the following requirements: (a) Be enrolled in, or have completed, a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher) related to remote sensing, geoinformatics, geodesy, Earth observation, GIS, geography, environmental science, or related disciplines; or (b) Be enrolled in, or have completed, the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum bachelor's level or equivalent) related to remote sensing, geoinformatics, geodesy, Earth observation, GIS, geography, environmental science, or related disciplines. Special skills (a) Proficiency in Python for geospatial work (e.g. rasterio, geopandas, GDAL, xarray, numpy) is required. (b) Working knowledge of a GIS platform (QGIS or ArcGIS) and of remote-sensing fundamentals (optical and radar) is required. (c) Familiarity with an Earth-observation data platform (Google Earth Engine, Copernicus/Sentinel Hub, or NASA Earthdata) is an asset. (d) Familiarity with InSAR processing (SNAP, ISCE2, MintPy or comparable) is a strong asset and is essential for the land-subsidence component. (e) Experience with cartographic production and map quality assurance is desirable. (f) Strong attention to reproducibility, data provenance and documentation is desirable. Familiarity with the responsible use of AI tools to improve work quality and efficiency, in line with UN guidelines, is desirable.

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. Fluency in spoken and written English is required for the Internship Programme. Knowledge of another language used in Asia-Pacific is an asset (e.g. Persian, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi, Nepali, Thai).

Not available.

Interns are not financially remunerated by the United Nations. Costs and arrangements for travel, visas, accommodation and living expenses are the responsibility of interns or their sponsoring institutions. Interns who are not citizens or permanent residents of the country where the internship is undertaken, may be required to obtain the appropriate visa and work/employment authorization. Successful candidates should discuss their specific visa requirements before accepting the internship offer.