Summer Internship Program

The Wellman Center for Photomedicine offers several summer research opportunities. For more detail, visit here.

In collaboration with the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST), the Wellman Center has run the Summer Institute for Biomedical Optics since 2002.

This program provides undergraduate student participants with research experience in the field of biomedical optics. The program objective is to inspire talented students to pursue advanced research, education, and careers in science and engineering. Faculty mentors offer interdisciplinary cutting-edge research projects in diverse, yet cohesive, themes in biomedical optics.

Twelve undergraduate students admitted each summer pursue full-time laboratory research for nine weeks, working in one of the laboratories at the Wellman Center and MIT. In addition to research, students attend lectures and research seminars, as well as professional development workshops on scientific writing, presentation and research ethics. All student participants are accommodated in the dormitory at the MIT campus, receive weekly stipends, and participate in various peer group activities, making their summer experience go much beyond what could be provided by a typical summer research experience in a single lab.

Research experience in this program is focused on engineering--from discovery of new transformative approaches to development of cutting-edge technologies. Innovation in biomedical optics requires understanding of physical and engineering principles, as well as biological and medical insights, to define important challenges and to understand how new technologies must perform. This program takes a coherent and interdisciplinary approach to introducing students to the full spectrum of biomedical optics and will help to realize the promise of biomedical optics by attracting talented students to pursue careers in this area at the graduate level and beyond.

The program is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wellman Center. The Director of the Summer Institute is Prof. S.H. Andy Yun.

Details and an application form can be obtained at the Summer Institute website (http://hst.mit.edu/academics/summer-institute/biomedical-optics). This year's program will run for 9 weeks during the months of June to August. Students must be a sophomore, junior, or senior undergraduate at the time of applying and must also be a United States Citizen or have permanent residence status. Summer stipends are available.

The application deadline for next summer program (2024 PENDING)

In collaboration with the KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in Korea, we have established a global summer internship program. Every year since 2010, six undergraduate students from KAIST spent 9 weeks in Boston, fully immersed in the multidisciplinary research-oriented environment at the Wellman Center. The students also participated in various social networking and voluntary activities and attended the Biomedical Optics Lecture Series organized by the Wellman Center. This program is funded by KAIST (http://www.kaist.edu/html/en/index.html) and Wellman Center. The Director of this program is Prof. S. H. Andy Yun.

In collaboration with the University of Tokyo in Japan, we have established a global summer internship program. Every year, 3-6 graduate students from Tokyo spent 9 weeks in Boston, broadening their research experience. This program is funded by the Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine in the University of Tokyo (http://www.cdbim.m.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/) and the Wellman Center. The Director of this program is Professor Seok-Hyun (Andy) Yun, PhD.

Undergraduates who are seeking summer internship opportunities at the Wellman Center are encouraged to contact the individual faculty members.

• HST-Wellman
• MGH-KAIST
• MGH-Tokyo
• Internships