Geothermal INTERN: The Third Time’s Just as Charming

At the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Geothermal, we've come to expect the Geothermal INTERN opportunity to reflect the breadth and momentum of the geothermal industry—and its third cohort is no exception. As geothermal research and development accelerate across the United States, this internship opportunity is helping build the skilled workforce needed to support growth by connecting emerging talent with formative work experience in the geothermal sector.  

The National Science Foundation (NSF) INTERN program provides non-academic research internships to graduate students to facilitate building core professional competencies and skills in a wide range of sectors in the U.S. economy. In contrast to a traditional internship scenario, the INTERN program empowers students to create the internship opportunities that will best develop their technical expertise and increase their career opportunities. In 2022, DOE and NSF announced their partnership on the Geothermal INTERN opportunity to support custom research internships in the geothermal industry on projects that advance geothermal technologies.  

The students in the third cohort in the Geothermal INTERN opportunity are applying their academic interests in host organizations at the forefront of geothermal, such as Cyrq Energy, Fervo Energy, RESPEC, Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, and Zanskar Geothermal and Minerals. During their internships, these students are putting their scholarly expertise to real-world use and gaining valuable hands-on experience being embedded in the geothermal workforce. 

This 17-person cohort includes 11 PhD candidates and six Masters of Science students from nine universities, including one Hispanic-serving institution and one university in an EPSCoR state. Fervo, a leading enhanced geothermal systems company, is hosting three students, two from Texas A&M and one from Texas Tech. Research projects include fault zone heterogeneity in geothermal areas, the analysis of a 2024 Fervo stimulation that revealed new subsurface structures and fault networks, and testing hypotheses of structural stability at operational geothermal sites using high-resolution datasets. 

Two Colorado School of Mines (CSM) students are interning with geothermal operator Cyrq Energy on characterizing drill core to better understand the subsurface geology of a Salton Sea geothermal system. Geothermal exploration and drilling management provider RESPEC is hosting two interns from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology to assess and improve the performance of underground energy storage using machine learning.   

One University of Southern California graduate student is currently interning with Zanskar, a geothermal exploration company, doing work to advance machine learning models for reservoir simulation, optimization, and inverse modeling in geothermal systems. At Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, a Virginia Tech student is simulating thermal, hydraulic, and mechanical processes in deep geologic formations to examine heat extraction efficiency, reservoir cooling rates, and fluid flow pathways. Last but not least, a student from the University of Texas at El Paso is analyzing two datasets while interning at Pacific Northwest National Lab, including one dataset from the Office of Geothermal’s FORGE initiative, to generate better understanding of complex geothermal stress fields in other dynamic geothermal systems.  

This is just a sample of the students getting front row seats to the best and brightest happenings in the geothermal industry, while contributing meaningfully to improvements in geothermal exploration, development, and operations. 

In convening up-and-comers and established innovators, the Geothermal INTERN opportunity is equipping students with the experience, skills, and professional connections needed to contribute to a rapidly expanding field. The Office of Geothermal is proud to invest in the next generation of geothermal leaders and help ensure that this growing industry is supported by a strong and capable workforce.