About the program
2022 Summer Intern Cohort!
Our Program
The Undergraduate Summer Internship is our headline program for bringing new minds into our scientific community. Each year, we recruit a vibrant cohort of undergraduates with a passion for science and a curiosity about what doing a PhD might look like. The program is held-in person, with interns working in Quantitative or Systems Biology labs either on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, MA or the Harvard Medical School Campus in Boston, MA. Interns learn together as a cohort through interactive journal clubs and workshops, and participate in Harvard seminars and activities. In 2024, the program will run June 10- August 9. Interns are paid a competitive stipend ($700/ week, paid in 3 installments during the program) and provided with housing and a meal plan. A free inter-campus Harvard shuttle will be available to all interns. For all admitted students, we will offset the costs of traveling to and from Harvard at the start and end of the internship.
Participants in our summer program can expect to emerge with: (i) increased confidence in scientific research, writing, and communication; (ii) increased awareness of the research opportunities and career paths a PhD offers; and (iii) connections with the Harvard faculty, students, and researchers who make our university great. Participants will also gain a group of peers who are also embarking on an exciting adventure into higher education in science, medicine, engineering, and mathematics.
Are we right for you?
Dr. J, a co-director of the internship, explains what to expect in the program.
We are eager to receive applications from enthusiastic, thoughtful undergraduates excited by the idea of pursuing a PhD or MD/PhD one day. Students who have the best time in our summer program have some research experience, but not a ton. Please do not feel that you need extensive research experience to apply. It’s our job to teach you how to be a successful researcher. It’s your job to learn.
We are therefore most interested in attracting eager students who can bring new perspectives to our enterprise, who are dedicated to learning as much as they can, who are willing to try and fail and try again, and who are committed to creating a vibrant, respectful, and supportive community. Students with a demonstrated track-record of resilience, graciousness, and commitment to the pursuit of learning in the face of personal, financial, societal, or cultural adversity are especially encouraged to apply. Great scientists do the hard work of solving problems that no one has solved before and using that knowledge to improve our world. If you have done the hard work of navigating the American educational system and leaving things better than you found them, you may already have the makings of a great scientist.
Projects will be all over the biological map: how cells grow, divide, and differentiate in health and disease; how DNA damage impacts cell cycle and cancer; how brains learn and remember; how proteins transport molecules across cell membranes; how branching things (plants, coral, etc) build themselves; how RNA folds into functional molecules; how ants behave; how to make sense of genetic sequences; how the environment and genes interact in health and disease; everything! Our research projects are unified by taking a very quantitative look at biological phenomena. Projects can range from entirely "wet-lab" to entirely computational, and may involve biology, statistics or math, some physics or theory, and image or sequence analysis. If you have experience in these areas, great. If not, we'll teach you. We'll make sure we match you to a project that's a good fit to your particular background and interests.
“Simply put, this experience exceeded my expectations: instead of getting a mere window into research at a major institution, I felt like I was knee-deep in truly engaging work at the bench and contributing to the lab."
Our Community
We are dedicated to a culture of inclusive excellence, and we aim to recruit and support a maximally diverse cohort of learners and mentors. Our cohorts have included rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Our interns were majoring in all sorts of things: molecular & cellular biology, English, bioengineering, computer science, electrical engineering, math, music, and statistics. Students participated from all over the US and proudly represented UMass Boston, UC Berkeley, Northeastern, Kenyon, Johns Hopkins, Spelman, Gettysburg, Duke, Columbia, and Clemson.
Eligibility
While we welcome different years, majors, and backgrounds, there are 3 hard requirements.
Candidates must be:
(a) US citizens or permanent residents
(b) currently a freshman, sophomore, or junior enrolled full-time in good standing working towards a bachelor's degree at an accredited public or private college or university in the United States or a US territory (students in programs conferring graduate degrees, including combined programs, are not eligible), and
(c) 18 years or older by the start of the program (June 10, 2024).
Interested in Applying?
Check out our application portal page and help sheet here!
Not right for you? Here are some other exciting science internship opportunities at Harvard
Summer Honors Undergraduate Research Program (SHURP)