Sound Transit seeks Research & Library Intern
Description
Sound Transit has an exciting virtual internship available for the summer of 2021! This is a great opportunity for currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate students who want to observe and participate in real world application of their current field of study. This opportunity will allow the intern to gain valuable experience within the Research & Innovation program under our Passenger Experience department.
DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW
Sound Transit’s Passenger Experience (PX) department puts the passenger experience at the core of strategy and decision making, ensuring the Sound Transit will plan, deliver, and operate a world class transportation system that improves the quality of life for everyone in the Puget Sound region. We strive to provide passengers with an available, safe, dependable, clean and informed transit experience on all of our services – Link, Sounder, ST Express, and Tacoma Link.
The Research Team exists to support the strategic mission, values, and goals of Sound Transit. We strive to integrate knowledge across diverse disciplines in order to address unanswered questions and to solve specific agency problems. We intentionally organize information and research in order to help the agency become a data-driven organization and to demonstrate the quality and positive impacts good research practices can yield. The usefulness of new and enhanced knowledge gained through this research process will be applied to enhance the transportation system and positively impact our ridership.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The following duties ARE NOT intended to serve as a comprehensive list of all duties performed by all employees in this classification, only a representative summary of the primary duties and responsibilities. Incumbent(s) may not be required to perform all duties listed and may be required to perform additional, position-specific duties.
An undergraduate student entering their junior or senior year with the following:
- Interest in creating and implementing user assessment tools and conducting user experience studies.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills with demonstrated ability to communicate effectively in multiple formats and to diverse audiences.
- Ability to summarize complex findings and present results of assessment activities.
- Energy and enthusiasm for user-focused services.
This intern will work to develop relationships with Sound Transit’s internal user communities and will utilize the information gathered from these interviews to identify and prioritize needs as they pertain to the information-seeking behaviors of staff. Working collaboratively within the Research team, the intern will be responsible for the development and implementation of user interviews and personas which will improve the overall quality of internal information services and the overall user experience. The Intern will gain direct experience with designing and conducting user needs assessments and interviews, designing personas, compiling results, identifying and distilling themes, and proposing solutions and strategies to address user identified information needs.
The intern may also support other research and data initiatives as warranted, based on program needs and the intern’s skill sets and interests.
