Call for Applications

The University of Idaho Library invites graduate students from any discipline at the University of Idaho to apply for the Julie and David Levine Data Hub Fellowship.

The fellowship occurs during the Spring semester with exact dates to be negotiated with the successful applicant. The fellow should plan to spend approximately 10-15 hours per week on the project. Eligible applicants must be enrolled in the spring semester.

In addition to helping with the operation of the Data Hub, fellows will select or propose a project which forwards the goals of increasing the availability of collections or services in support of the U of I Library’s Data Hub.

Potential Projects:

• Identify, prioritize, digitize, and georeference historical aerial imagery of Idaho. The U of I Library manages a large printed aerial photo collection. A project would be to identify and understand items in the printed aerial photo collection, prioritize unique items, and digitize and georeference items to make them more accessible and useable for use by students, researchers, or others.
• Identify and digitize historical data resources relevant to Idaho. University of Idaho physical and digital collections contains numerous sources of tabular and other forms of data, locked in either physical volumes or as scanned PDF documents. A project would be to identify a dataset across a series of publications, either physical or digital and convert those to useable, contemporary datasets for use by students, researchers, or others.
• Create curated learning paths for topics in GIS or the data sciences of a particular discipline. The Library seeks to support learning of data literacy across campus as well as development of open educational resources that can impact teaching. As initiatives such as Data Carpentry workshops and increased focus on data sciences in course work take root at U of I, how can the library help curate resources and provide support for learners in specific areas of data literacy? A potential fellow project would pursue this question, helping to curate resources, develop teaching materials, and deliver programming to meet the needs of the campus community.

The deliverables from the fellowship project will be online resources such as digitized and geo-rectified aerial imagery, data sciences-related learning materials, or digitized and normalized data resources derived from historical material. A multi-modal report documenting the process and resources will be expected as part of the conclusion of the fellowship. All deliverables will be made publicly available through the U of I Library website and other sites as appropriate (e.g. Github).

How to Apply

Applicants may select from projects listed above that they find interesting or may submit a proposal for a different project which forwards the goals of increasing the availability of collections or services in support of the U of I Library’s Data Hub. The activities of the fellow will be focused primarily on accomplishing their project, but will also participate in the launch of the new Data Hub services, which may include assisting Data Hub staff with answering questions, preparing web content, or planning events.

Applicants must submit:

1. A letter of interest of no more than 500 words describing your proposed project, and how your previous experience, education, and/or training prepares you for the work of this fellowship
2. A current CV or resume

Application Form

Application Criteria

Applications are evaluated based on:

• Clear understanding of the proposed project and its goals
• Alignment with Data Hub’s mission and capabilities
• Relevant experience and skills for the proposed work
• Feasibility of completion within the fellowship timeframe
• Potential impact on library collections and services

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Past Projects

Bringing Idaho's Water History into the Digital Age

Dewan Al Rafi

2026 • Water Resources

Transform Idaho's historical water records into structured, reusable data to uncover long-term trends in water systems and support modern research ...

Beneficial Use Reconnaissance Program

Garrison Ferone

2026 • Fish & Wildlife Sciences

Utilize the historical Beneficial Use Reconnaissance Program dataset (1993-2021), to conduct spatiotemporal analysis on a wide range of taxa, and v...

View Project

Geo-rectifying Historial Idaho Aerial Photographs

Caroline Ludwig

2023 • Geography

Caroline geo-rectified and in some cases digitized, historical air photo’s in the U of I collection. Additionally, she developed and documented a w...