Program Overview:
The Data Science Internship Program focuses on increasing the availability of data science talent in the life sciences. The program creates well-paid internships for qualified candidates, including those at the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral levels, by enabling research institutions and companies to hire paid interns. The program connects employers with prospective interns through an online platform and reimburses eligible companies and research institutions for intern stipends. Companies with greater than 100 full time employees (FTE) in Massachusetts are also encouraged to use the portal to search for talent, but reimbursements will not be available for intern stipends.
Eligibility Requirements
Interns must demonstrate through their applications that they are proficient in advanced analytics skills and technologies based on their work experience and/or academic training. Applicants will need to indicate if they have proficiency in data science skills/tools such as the following: application software packages and libraries, database software, programming languages, and techniques such as data visualization, deep learning, machine learning, and statistical programming. Applicants that do not have such qualifications will not be eligible. They are instead encouraged to apply for a general life sciences internship through the MLSC’s Internship Challenge.
Interns are eligible for only one Data Science Internship and will not be eligible to work for a company for which they have previously had two subsidized internships (including through the Internship Challenge). Please note that post-docs cannot intern in a lab at a research institution for which they have previously worked and that students pursuing degrees are ineligible to work in the department in which they are pursuing their degrees.
Through this program, the MLSC also seeks to increase access to internships for those traditionally underrepresented in the data science field, particularly those identifying as women, Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx. Such candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
The MLSC will reimburse host organizations for pay rates of up to $20 per hour for interns pursuing or having completed their Bachelor’s degree or possessing comparable data science qualifications, for a maximum reimbursement of $12,800. Interns who have completed their Master’s degree or are doctoral candidates can have wages reimbursed up to $25 per hour for a maximum reimbursement of $16,000. Interns who completed their Ph.D. are paid up to $30 per hour for a maximum reimbursement of $19,200. If interns have not completed their degree, host companies would be reimbursed at the rate just below the level of completion. For example, an intern who has not completed their Master’s degree would be eligible for the $20 rate.
Please Note:
- Interns are to be hired and paid directly by the host organization. Any employed intern shall be treated as a W-2 employee (not a contractor or subcontractor). Interns must be hired for a temporary internship experience and not as permanent employees. Upon completion of the internship, interns can be hired as full-time employees.
- If the internship position is hybrid, at least 40% of the internship must be in-person (two days/week minimum).
- Organizations cannot hire an intern who is the relative or spouse of a relative of any current employee of the organization (or department/lab, if employer is a research institution).
- Interns cannot participate in more than one subsidized internship in the same program year.
- Interns cannot participate in more than one subsidized internships with the same organization.
- Internships cannot be concurrently subsidized by another state entity (such as MassTech or MassCEC).
