Volunteer Science Team for Nala – Giving Rivers a Voice

We’re giving rivers a voice—with science, real-time data, and AI. 🌊

Through our Nala project, we’re developing an open system for water protection: Sensors continuously collect data directly from the river, our IT team processes it—and in the future, AI will help identify changes early on and make them easier to understand.

To this end, we’re now building a small interdisciplinary scientific team to complement our volunteer developer team.

After all, a single measurement value alone doesn’t tell us much. We’re interested in: What does the combination of oxygen, temperature, pH, conductivity, and other parameters mean for the ecosystem? When does a change become significant? And what action might need to be taken as a result?

We’re looking for people with knowledge or experience in fields such as aquatic ecology, limnology, hydrobiology, fish biology, water or environmental chemistry, hydrology, environmental sciences, or related disciplines.

Together, we want to combine scientific insights with our real-time data and, step by step, develop a system that helps people better understand and protect their water bodies.

Master’s students, doctoral candidates, working professionals, and retired scientists are also expressly welcome.

Collaboration takes place primarily remotely, on a volunteer basis, and flexibly according to your availability. You don’t have to be an expert in everything—we’re looking for people who can contribute their knowledge and are eager to create something new in collaboration with experts from other disciplines.

Data should lead to understanding. Understanding should lead to action.

Depending on your field of expertise, experience, and interests, you can contribute to a variety of tasks:

You don’t have to cover all areas. We want to build an interdisciplinary team where everyone contributes their own expertise.

We are looking for people with a professional background or advanced studies in one or more of the following fields: aquatic ecology, limnology, biology, hydrobiology, fish ecology, water/environmental chemistry, hydrology, environmental sciences, ecotoxicology, or related disciplines.

We value scientific thinking, curiosity about environmental data, and a willingness to share knowledge with others across disciplines.

You don’t need to know anything about AI or programming—that’s what our IT team is for. What’s much more important is your expert perspective on the water body and your ability to interpret what the data tells us about its condition.

The volunteer work is flexible and can easily be balanced with your studies or career. As a general guideline, about 2–5 hours per week is helpful—but we’ll tailor the scope and schedule to your individual needs. You can also choose to work on a clearly defined subproject.

Nala is a volunteer-driven open-source project currently under development. We’re not looking for lone wolves, but rather people who are eager to share their knowledge and develop new solutions together with experts from the fields of science, technology, and water management.

The rule is: No one has to know everything. Diverse perspectives are expressly encouraged.