Summer Intern – Machine Learning for Animal Assessment

Livestock Improvement Corporation; Otago; On-site; NZD 12,357,000 - 16,476,000; Part time

Job summary

Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) in Newstead, North Island, seeks a Summer Intern for Machine Learning in Dairy Animal Assessment. You’ll work on an early‑stage vision of how computer vision and ML can quantify live animal features, using video and 3D data with scalable workflows.

The role involves on‑farm data capture, dataset annotation, and prototyping outputs for research and product development, with a paid 29.90 NZD/hour for 10 weeks.

Qualifications

• Python programming experience for ML and data analysis.
• Interest in computer vision, ML, and applied AI.
• Basic data handling and exploratory analysis skills (Pandas/NumPy).
• Ability to learn annotation and validation workflows for image/video data.
• Clear written communication and documentation abilities.
• Curiosity about dairy systems, animal breeding or agtech.
• Willingness to spend time on farm data capture following safety rules.
• Interest in 3D data, spatial capture or photogrammetry is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Help progress the project toward a practical proof of concept.
• Assist with on‑farm video capture.
• Organise and validate captured footage.
• Annotate key visual features and prepare datasets for model development.
• Develop a prototype workflow turning video or spatial data into outputs.

Skills

Python

Computer vision

Data handling

Annotation workflows

Communication

Dairy/agri interest

Farm data capture

3D data interest

Tools

Pandas

Polars

NumPy

Job description

Summer Intern – Machine Learning for Animal Assessment

Livestock Improvement Corporation – Newstead, North Island

LIC’s Research and Development (R&D) group is driving innovation to keep New Zealand farmers and their businesses at the forefront of the global dairy industry. Our world‑class team is actively engaged in cutting‑edge work across genetics, genomics, reproduction, animal health, statistics, and machine learning.

In partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, we’re offering summer internships that provide hands‑on experience across a diverse range of scientific and technical areas—from genetic analysis to data science and modelling—leveraging both in‑house and cloud‑based computing platform

Project Details:
Project Title:
Machine Learning Feature Advancement for Dairy Animal Assessment
Project scope:

The successful student will contribute to an early‑stage project exploring whether computer vision and machine learning can support consistent, scalable assessment of live dairy animal features. The project will focus on capturing video and spatial data from animals, rendering and analysing physical features in three dimensions, and assessing how well machine learning models can generate useful outputs from that data. This work sits within broader interest in improving feature capture and measurement, using scalable technology to make animal assessment more consistent, repeatable, and practical for future research and product development.

Your Contribution:

• Help progress the project toward a practical proof of concept.

• Assist with on‑farm video capture.

• Organise and validate captured footage.

• Annotate key visual features and prepare datasets for model development.

• Develop a prototype workflow that turns video or spatial data into usable analytical outputs

Expected Outputs:

The project provides time‑boxed contribution to an important early‑stage machine vision project. The student’s work will help establish whether relatively accessible capture technologies, such as multi‑camera phone‑based capture, can provide data of sufficient quality to support automated or semi‑automated assessment of dairy animal features. The project may also generate reusable datasets, annotation processes, and prototype code that future R&D work can build on.

Key Skills Required:

• Python programming experience

• Interest in computer vision, machine learning, image/video analysis, or applied AI.

• Basic understanding of data handling, data cleaning, and exploratory analysis; experience with tools such as Pandas, Polars, NumPy, or similar would be useful

• Ability to learn annotation and validation workflows for image or video datasets

• Clear written communication and documentation skills

• Curiosity about dairy systems, animal breeding, phenotyping, or agricultural technology

• Willingness to spend a portion of time on working dairy farms for data capture, following LIC health and safety and animal handling requirements.

• Interest in 3D data, spatial capture, photogrammetry, LiDAR, or model‑based feature extraction would be an advantage but is not essential.

To be eligible for these internships students must be:

• Legally permitted to work in New Zealand.

• Studying, or have studied, an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification at NZQA level 6‑10 If study has been completed, the final semester should have ended within the last 12 months.

• Studying, or have studied, science, technology, engineering, design or business at a New Zealand tertiary education institute.

• Be able to work on‑site at our Head Office in Newstead Hamilton for the duration of the internship

Application information:

If you have worked for LIC before, you can still apply if:

• your job was part‑time or temporary

• you only held one R&D Experience Grant internship with LIC.

The internship is a paid opportunity offering $29.90 per hour for a period of 10 weeks. You will be required to work a minimum of 30 hours per week, up to a maximum of 400 hours to be completed by 31 March 2027. Participation in the project will be based physically at LIC. At the conclusion of the internship, you will be required to deliver a presentation and submit a report.

Applications close: 13 September 2026 or earlier if the roles are filled