2020 Virtual Internships
The UT Southwestern Medical Center Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics, offered internships for students taking a COVID-19 related gap year or who need a virtual opportunity to fulfill internship course requirements in 2020 .
These virtual opportunities replaced the U-Hack Med 2020 Hackathon but still provided an exciting way for students to engage in longer hackathon-inspired projects with meaningful outcomes.
Fully virtual with a paid stipend, the U-Hack Med Gap Year was for curious, mature and motivated undergraduate students who wanted to invest in real-world problem solving using their computer science and engineering skills to advance biomedical science.
Why
Thinking of taking a gap year or semester due to COVID-19 adjustments at your univeristy?
Need to meet internship requirements without traveling due to COVID-19 or other limitations?
Want to apply your CS & engineering skills to “real-world” biomedical problems?
Want to make a positive impact on healthcare using what you’re learning in your degree program?
What
If your answer to any of the above questions is “yes” then a U-Hack Med Gap Year may be for you!
These virtual internships offer undergraduate students an opportunity to work closely with faculty and other researchers in the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics to solve computational problems in biomedicine. Accepted students will receive a stipend of $1,600 per month.
Each project will be discrete in scope so it can be completed in 6-9 months (minimum of 30 hours per week) — feasible for a gap year or internship.
We expect that scholarly publications or conference presentations may result and support gap year students as co-authors.
Who
Applicants must be undergraduate students currently residing in the United States and pursuing Computer Science, Engineering or Physics degrees.
Opportunities are for students who are either deferring for a term/year, taking a temporary leave of absence from their program (e.g., “gap year”), or completing a degree-related internship for credit.
Must be curious and motivated, independent, disciplined, focused, and able to succeed in a remote work setting.
Because of the remote setting, applicants will provide their own computer hardware and must have suitable internet connectivity. For computationally intensive tasks, students will have access to the UTSW high-performance compute infrastructure, BioHPC.
When
Internship positions will be available beginning October 1, 2020 and will remain open through the 2020-2021 academic year.
Students will determine start date based on their gap year circumstances or internship course requirements.
Each internship project is discrete and variable in timeline. Project mentors will work with students to determine expected project duration.
Students will also participate in regular virtual “lab” meetings with other U-Hack Med Gap Year students and mentors and will be invited to attend bi-monthly virtual Department of Bioinformatics Works-in-Progress seminars, providing the opportunity to interact and network with many other researchers.
Where
Online from wherever you are, so long as it’s within the United States.
UT Southwestern Medical center is located in Dallas, Texas but we are offering these internships virtually.
**Due to current USCIS restrictions, international students must be able to complete I-9 check-in in person at UTSW in Dallas, TX. Thus due to UTSW COVID-19 related travel restrictions, only international students within driving distance of Dallas will be considered. This may change in January 2021 when UTSW re-evaluates its current travel policies.