High School Intern Programs

There are many opportunities to work with Systems Education Experiences and ISB

One of the key objectives of ISB involves transferring knowledge gained through research to the community for the benefit of society. A second objective is to inspire and prepare the next generation of researchers. The Systems Education Experiences (SEE) program that operates within the Baliga Lab and across ISB meets and surpasses these objectives through a variety of internship and ambassador programs.

This year we are offering multiple opportunities for high school students. These opportunities are a mix of in-person and virtual experiences. The application for all opportunities is the same. This means your one, complete application will allow our hiring committee to consider you for all of the opportunities that you are eligible for and interested in.

Details on four programs we will offer during the summer of 2026 and the 2026-2027 academic year are below. Please read all information available before contacting our staff with questions – the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page should be especially helpful, as well as our Tips & Tricks for Professional Communications.  We receive over 300 applications, so put forth your best work throughout the application process in order to improve your chances of being selected to participate.

OPEN ENROLLMENT:

1) Systems Thinkers in STEM Ambassadorship (STiSA)

Current 10th and 11th graders are eligible to apply for STiSA. All applicants who complete the full application will be accepted into STiSA and can choose whether or not to participate. You can participate in both STiSA and either the internship or DREAM-High, should you be selected. As a STiSA participant, you will first be invited to attend a 2-hour, virtual workshop: “Systems are Everywhere.” You will learn about systems modeling and how systems thinking is used in research and careers. You will then have the opportunity to enroll in one of two virtual micro-courses: “Introduction to Systems Medicine” or “Environmental Systems, Research, and Stewardship.” From there, you will be invited to participate in other courses including the final virtual micro-course of the series, “Learning in Motion: Taking Action in Your Community.” These workshops will be held several times throughout the summer. The invitation to these workshops will come to the email address you share with us in your application materials. After you attend a 2-hour workshop, you will be invited to join an interactive Slack channel. This will allow you to stay connected with other ambassadors, and to our team so you can hear about upcoming opportunities to advance your systems thinking in STEM. These opportunities will be a combination of virtual and in-person offerings that you can participate in according to your interest and availability. As a STiSA participant, you will also be eligible to join one of our LEADS Cohorts. This is a free program. See this page for more info on STiSA and this page for more information on LEADS.

COMPETITIVE OPPORTUNITIES:

2) 8-Week, In-Person Summer Internship for Rising Seniors

Current 11th graders only are eligible to apply for ISB’s 8-week (~300 hours) formal summer internship. This summer’s possible internship topics include but are not limited to: computational biology (which can include scenarios in health and/or the environment), cancer, microbiology (which includes microbial interactions, antimicrobial resistance, resilience and collapse of complex systems), engineering laboratory systems, technology development, the microbiome, infectious disease, immune system diversity, and aging and fragility. All projects are aligned with a current ISB project which is driven by a mentor. Students will learn about systems biology and apply their learning to a research project. Depending on the project, students will also learn and/or deepen their understanding of scientific, engineering, math, coding, leadership and other professional and computer-based skills. All projects also include: a) interviewing ISB professionals to learn about various career paths, b) building a website that describes the internship project and experience, and c) helping out with school-based curriculum development if pertinent. We will host 4-10 temporary High School Interns in the Baliga Lab and/or in other ISB Labs. The internship will begin on June 29 and end on August 21, 2026 (excluding July 4). The Interns will be at ISB to 40 hours per week. Unpaid service learning and paid positions are available. Please continue reading below for more information.

3) 6-Week, Virtual or In-Person DREAM-High Collaborative Summer Experience for Rising Seniors

Current 11th graders only are eligible to apply for DREAM-High (~32 hours over 6 weeks). DREAM-High is a partnership program brought to you by Columbia University, ISB and Stanford University. Through hands-on programming in R and Python, you will learn to visualize and analyze genomics, clinical, and physical data from cancer cells. You will apply that learning to related challenge projects. Students will also collaborate with others across the nation and showcase their skills online. See this page for more details. We will host 12 DREAM-High Scholars to join ISB’s summers cohort which will tentatively begin the second week of July and extend through to the third week of August. DREAM-High Scholars join flexibly arranged online sessions once per week for 3-4 hours with other DREAM-High scholars. These sessions are led by active cancer systems biology researchers from all partner institutes. This is a free program with $500 stipends available on an as-needed basis.

4) Full Academic Year Internship for Students During their Senior Year 

Current 11th graders only are eligible to apply for an Academic Year Internship (~10 or more hours per week during your senior year). Many local schools have programs that provide students release time during their senior year to complete an internship. If you are one of these students, now is the time to apply rather than during the summer before 12th grade. ISB generally hosts between 2 and 6 high school seniors to intern. The internship runs very similar to the 8-week summer program, but is flexibly scheduled according to the intern and mentor’s time. In all cases, work is done during business hours between Monday and Friday, from 9am to 5pm. The research topics available are the same as those available in the summer, so please see the summer description for more information.

More information on the 8-week, in-person summer internship and academic year internships:

Each January, Systems Education Experiences posts a job opportunity on the ISB careers website, enabling high school juniors to apply for a competitive, paid summer internship. This internship is very different than those typically found in research labs. The systems biology approach allows students to work with many specialists, directly involving the students in a variety of projects, using many types of technology and techniques. Students gain valuable microbiology, engineering, and computational experience. Due to the unique nature of this curriculum building and research-based laboratory experience, students are highly engaged in creative problem solving as well as both independent and group learning. The internships are focused on bringing these key opportunities to students who typically would not have access to a professional work environment and a state-of-the-art research lab.

In addition to the scientific and educational components of their 8-week internship, students also meet with a variety of the ISB staff allowing them to explore many types of professions and career paths. Who they speak with is up to the students, but usually, students meet with faculty members, research scientists, as well as administrative, legal, development, financial, and ISB’ers. In addition, they participate in a STEM Leadership program. 

The program has been highly successful and is externally evaluated promoting the best experience possible. Jessica, an intern who went on to attend UC Berkeley, had the following to say about her time at ISB. “I learned how to work collaboratively in a lab setting. It was also great to get a feeling for what it is like to be a research scientist. I realized that I can come into something being completely ignorant and gain an understanding of what is happening by asking questions and doing research.”

“This was a really great thing to realize because it made the knowledge of people in the lab seem a lot more accessible to me and a more realistic goal,” Jessica added. “It taught me that I can, although it will take a while, become as knowledgeable about science as the researchers in the lab.”

To showcase their work and to document their experience, students learn from a skilled web designer to develop their own web pages. View the pages to learn more about what the interns do during their summer at ISB. If you are wondering what a standard day might be like for an intern, the 2012 interns, and many other since, put together a quick glance into a typical day at the end of their About Us page. Our 2014 interns, and many others since, also put together a page with information for applicants. For more student comments on the internship, please view this short video featuring our 2011 interns and the above-referenced video featuring one of our 2016 interns. All of this information can be found within the previous interns’ webpages. For general information and intern news items, see our main ISB Webpage and search using appropriate terms, such as “intern” and/or topics you are specifically interested in. Also, see the SEE and ISB YouTube channels for more videos that highlight our science and experiences. As an example, these two videos by Amy Zamora (here and here) specifically speak to how ISB is different from other institutes for young scientists.

If you have questions, please view our frequently asked questions (FAQ) page. You can also view this 3-minute video for more information on SEE and our 8-week internship.

Even years after their internships, students stay in touch. Sue Yi, a 2008 intern, emailed us after she completed her BS at the University of Notre Dame in 2014. She was preparing to enter an MD/PhD program and wanted to let us know that her high school internship was, “…a great experience and really good to get started early. My experience in the Baliga lab is what inspired me to try research out in college and look where that has led me!”

If you have questions that are not addressed in the web materials and resources, please contact our team at see@isbscience.org.