Who We Are:
The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) seeks to protect, preserve, and enhance Massachusetts’ environmental resources and create a clean energy future for all residents. Through the stewardship of open spaces, the protection of environmental resources, and the advancement of clean energy, EEA works tirelessly to make Massachusetts a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family. Our commitment to environmental justice ensures that every resident, regardless of background or location, can live in a safe, clean environment and shares equally in the benefits of the clean energy transition.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is the state agency responsible for ensuring clean air, land, and water. Our work impacts every aspect of people's lives and is critical to the health and wellbeing of our residents and visitors. MassDEP is the lead agency for safe management of toxics and hazardous materials, promotion of waste reduction and recycling, preservation of the state's wetlands and coastal resources, air quality monitoring and pollution reduction, and so much more.
Who We Are as an Employer:
At EEA, we create meaningful, inclusive opportunities that empower our employees to make a real difference in shaping the environmental future of Massachusetts. We foster a workplace culture where diversity is valued, innovation is encouraged, and collaboration thrives. Our employees play a vital role in advancing sustainability, environmental justice, and clean energy solutions, ensuring a positive and lasting impact on Massachusetts and its residents.
This internship is unpaid and designed to support students or recent graduates seeking practical experience in the field. Interns may be eligible to earn academic credit through their college or university.
Job Description:
The MassDEP Web Team seeks a motivated student looking to make a tangible difference in how the public accesses and engages with the agency’s critical environmental data and information. Our team oversees MassDEP’s online presence and works to ensure that visitors can easily find, understand, and use the resources available on our website. For the core of this internship, you will focus on analyzing and transforming a set of highly used downloadable environmental forms into fully transactional and accessible online equivalents. You will work with staff to collect and understand environmental data/reporting requirements and create online forms that meet those requirements. In addition, you will leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to analyze the library of forms to find commonalities, and you will make recommendations for more efficient data collection methods.
This project will improve the public’s access and user experience when submitting complex environmental information, will enhance data quality through advanced field level validations, and will advance efficiency by capturing core environmental data electronically and by reducing staff time and effort required for updating forms for federal accessibility requirements. We will provide training in all the tools and best practices required for this project. Through this internship, you will gain experience working with environmental professionals and data, learn about digital accessibility, and develop technical expertise in an online forms engine and in business requirements gathering and analysis. You will actively contribute to improving the public’s interactions on our web site and help transform high priority content into more accessible, usable, and effective products.
Job Duties:
Work with program staff and the Web team to gather and analyze core environmental and regulatory requirements for a set of existing downloadable forms
Design an equivalent set of online transactional forms in Gravity that capture these core requirements and that leverage conditional logic and validation rules to improve data quality and to deliver a user-friendly and accessible UI.
Conduct QA and testing protocols to demonstrate correspondence of online versions with the existing forms, to validate data capture and field level rules and to develop routing and workflow process consistent with program requirements.
Investigate how AI may be used to analyze environmental data / reporting requirements and find opportunities for improvements.
Other duties as assigned.
Preferred Qualifications:
Strong communication (written and oral) and organization skills.
Familiarity with, or an interest in learning, accessibility best practices and standards for digital resources that deliver inclusive and accessible tools for users of all abilities.
Familiarity with, or interest in working on, environmental requirements and data, user analytics, generative AI tools, online form platforms and/or Web design and information architecture.
Basic knowledge of or interest in web development and online form builders, UX/UI design, or building accessible, user-friendly digital tools to support environmental programs and data. Experience with MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, InDesign, Photoshop, or Illustrator a plus.
Position Information:
Contracted Student Intern: Enterprise and Information Office - Website Team Intern (Boston) - (UNPAID) (ID: 260007SR)
Start/End Date: 1/11/2027 - 6/18/2027
Weekly Hours: 22.5 hours
Number of Openings: 1 position
First consideration will be given to those applicants that apply within the first 14 days.
Minimum Requirements: NONE
Please see the Preferred Qualifications above.
Comprehensive Benefits
When you embark on a career with the Commonwealth, you are offered an outstanding suite of employee benefits that add to the overall value of your compensation package. We take pride in providing a work experience that supports you, your loved ones, and your future.
Want the specifics? Explore our Employee Benefits and Rewards!
An Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer. Females, minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.
The Commonwealth is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. Research suggests that qualified women, Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color (BIPOC) may self-select out of opportunities if they don't meet 100% of the job requirements. We encourage individuals who believe they have the skills necessary to thrive to apply for this role.
