External Undergraduate Research and Internship Programs

Links are updated as they are received.

This page contains information primarily about summer research and internship opportunities for current undergraduate students. However, we do receive announcements about internships and job opportunities for recent graduates. Such information is posted at the end of the page. 

One exception: As you are enjoying your undergraduate experience in physics, it is still very important to think about life after college; four years can slip right by! If you are interested in a career in physics, or a physics-related discipline, the SPS has a great Careers Toolbox that you should download and use! It can help you map out – based upon your highly quantitative, problem-solving and teamwork training – how to pitch these skills to employers. Want a hardcopy? Please ask the DUS and stay tuned for our annual workshop in January!

DISCLAIMER: Programs on this list are not necessarily endorsed by the Georgetown Physics department, nor is this a complete list of research opportunities. We regularly receive email announcements and post these listings as a service to the community.

Programs that sponsor summer undergraduate research at multiple institutions (e.g. REU):

  1. AMGEN Scholars Program: this is an undergraduate summer research program in science and biotechnology. There are 13 US institutions that participate in the program
  2. NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
  3. Community-sourced REU directory designed to help students find opportunities that fit their identities and schedules
  4. American Mathematical Society’s REU Programs 
  5. SPS (Society of Physics Students) Summer Internship Program
  6. MD-PhD-focused summer undergraduate research programs
  7. Pathways to Science – a searchable database

Programs at Federal institutions and National labs:

  1. US Department of Energy (DOE) Scholars Program
  2. US DOE Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) Robotics Internship Program
  3. Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) NOTE: they have three separate internship periods – summer, fall and spring – so this might be a good opportunity if you are graduating and would like a short term and paid research job
  4. SULI at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBL)
  5. Internships at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL)
  6. Science Education Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – they have many summer research as well as internship programs
  7. Fermilab Summer Internships in Science and Technology
  8. Summer ORISE Fellowship Opportunity at the FDA 
  9. Summer ORISE Fellowship Opportunity at CDC
  10. Research opportunities at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)
  11. NIH Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research
  12. NASA internships
  13. Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) Program
  14. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) student internship programs
  15. Society of Physics Students (SPS) Summer Internship Program
  16. NIST SURF Program Please note – there are limits to the number of applications accepted and this will vary by NIST location. Also application dates will depend on the NIST site. Please check early to make sure your application will be accepted.
  17. Space Telescope Science Institute’s Space Astronomy Summer Program
  18. American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Program
  19. AAPM DREAM – Diversity Recruitment Recruitment through Education and Mentoring Program

Specific programs at academic institutions:

  1.  Caltech Summer Research Programs 
  2. Stanford Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)
  3. MIT Summer Research Program – General (MSRP)
  4. Summer internship at UCSD/Scripps Institution of Oceanography/Marine Physical Laboratory
  5. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: Physics REU program
  6. Michigan State University REU in Physics
  7. Michigan State University’s Advanced Computational Research Experience for Students (ACRES)
  8. University of Texas-Austin: Biomedical Engineering REU in Cancer Research
  9. UCLA Bruins-In-Genomics (B.I.G.) Summer Research Program
  10. Summer Undergraduate Program in Engineering Research at Berkeley (SUPERB)
  11. University of Wisconsin-Madison: Department of Astronomy REU program
  12. Columbia Business School – Summer Research Internship program
  13. University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) REU program in materials research
  14. Virginia Tech REU in neutrino physics
  15. REU at Kansas State University: Interactions of Matter, Light and Learning
  16. University of Missouri REU: Materials design and processing
  17. Department of Astronomy at Cornell University: REU program
  18. University of Pittsburgh – Undergraduate Summer Research Program in Computational Biology
  19. Columbia University – Materials Research REU
  20. Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at Vanderbilt University REU Program
  21. Physics REU at the University of Oklahoma
  22. Princeton Plasma Physics Lab Summer Engineering Undergraduate Internship Program
  23. Brigham Young University REU program in physics and astronomy
  24. Maryland Sea Grant REU
  25. University of Tennessee Research Experiences in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (RECSEM) NSF REU

CERN internship programs:

Programs at international institutions:

Short term post-baccalaureate opportunities – these are good for graduates taking a gap year (or two):

Post-graduate opportunities: