SI - Accessing and Presenting Data for Public Policy Analysis

Job Description

PPIC’s Summer Intern Program provides an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students interested in a public policy career to work in a policy research environment. Intern projects are proposed by PPIC staff members and designed around a specific set of tasks and deliverables that can be accomplished within the term of the internship. Please complete your application by February 9, 2026. We expect to make final selection decisions by mid-April.

Project title: Accessing and presenting data for public policy analysis

Project Directors: Eric McGhee, Hans Johnson

Project Description

Understanding California’s Future (UCF) is an initiative at PPIC dedicated to tracking important developments and trends in the areas of demography, housing, governance, and climate change. One of the key features of the initiative is a commitment to nimble, responsive, and accessible analysis and presentation of data. Given the wide range of topics within UCF, it can be challenging to stay on top of all the data sources and ensure we have a properly formatted version of each ready in a timely manner for influencing policy conversations.

The goal for the summer project is to help produce the next version of a tool for automating the acquisition, extraction, and formatting of publicly available data sources. Prior versions of the tool were implemented in Python as a Jupyter Notebook and helped staff retrieve fresh releases of datasets from sources like the California state demographer and the U.S. Census. Some pieces of the tool have already been migrated to an interactive web-based form. The summer intern will work to debug and migrate the remaining parts of the tool, and will explore new data that might be added.

Candidates will be able to adapt the existing project to a new environment, make it more usable for research staff, expand its functionality to new sources of data, and document their work for future revisions of the tool. The intern will also work with the project directors to identify new data sources and explore the best way to present information from them. The intern will benefit from working with project directors who are established policy analysts with decades of experience and who can teach the intern about data analysis in a policy environment.

Project expectations: produce the next version of a tool for automating download and sharing of newly released public data.

Responsibilities

The intern will work with project leaders to:

Migrate existing pieces of a Jupyter Notebook tool to an interactive environment using a Python-based framework such as Flask or Streamlit that can support form-based interactions via HTML output

Identify important new data sources and understand their value

Work creatively to develop new ways of presenting critical information

Leave a well-documented project that can be extended in the future

The intern will be a member of the Understanding California’s Future policy group, will participate in intern program events, and will present a summary of this work to PPIC staff at the end of the summer.

Qualifications

The intern for this project should possess:

Strong experience with and understanding of Python, HTML, and CSS, or similar

Some experience with data analysis and data visualization

Ability to work independently, handle feedback well, and change direction when necessary

Training in economics, political science, demography, public health, public policy, sociology, or urban planning a plus

The Research Environment

Interns are offered the opportunity to participate in the collegial atmosphere of PPIC through daily interaction with all aspects of the institute. They are invited to join the staff in their regular meetings and to attend PPIC’s outside events, including the institute’s public affairs programs and research briefings. PPIC offers access to the Institute of Governmental Sciences library at the University of California, Berkeley, allowing interns to work with many important databases, journals, and statistical datasets. The intern program also includes a discussion of California state policy by PPIC’s government affairs staff.

Each intern’s project will include an initial meeting with research staff, and towards the end of the project, a briefing by the intern on the goals, findings, and significance of the project. In 2026, the following days are expected to be in-person for all interns:

Internship kickoff in San Francisco

Capitol tour in Sacramento

Final presentations in San Francisco

Interns are encouraged to discuss their work throughout the course of the project, to meet with research staff to discuss careers in research, and to meet with communications staff to learn about outreach and building an audience of policymakers.

Location, Compensation, and Time on Project

The 2026 intern program will be conducted via hybrid or remote setup; the details of the setup will be arranged with the intern’s supervisor. Interns will need to be based in California while working on a PPIC project.

Compensation is $23 per hour. This full-time internship will last up to ten weeks, ideally beginning June 15, 2026.

To Apply

As part of completing this application, submit your cover letter highlighting the particular skills you bring to the project and describing how this internship would contribute to your career development, and attach your resume as PDF or Word file.

Equal Employer Opportunity (EEO) statement:

PPIC celebrates diversity and is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building a team that represents the backgrounds, perspectives, identities, and skills of California. No matter who you are, we invite you to apply for this role.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer.

Hybrid remote