Compiled by Laura Sontag (updated December 2007)
Summer undergraduate research internships are a great way to learn about active areas of research in a particular field, meet students with common intellectual interests, get to know graduate students and faculty members working in the area, give you a better idea of whether you would like to pursue graduate studies, and have fun!
When looking for programs to apply to, keep in mind what you are looking for in a program. For instance, some programs are short (2 or 3 weeks) while others can last the entire summer. What you will actually do during your time there can be very different: you could be attending lectures, working on group projects, or working individually with graduate students or professors. Also, you may want to choose a location where you would enjoy spending the summer, or somewhere you always wanted to go but haven’t had the opportunity. Some programs may be very small, while others can have as many as 50-100 summer interns. Check to see if the program offers weekly seminars or discussions on areas like applying to graduate school, fellowships, and research ethics, as well as talks on a variety of research areas – these can be very informative. Some of the organized internship programs require you to write up a paper summarizing your project and accomplishments and/or have a poster session at the end of the summer. This will help you polish your skills in technical writing and give you practice explaining your research approaches.
Most programs I am aware of provide a place to live, travel expenses, and a stipend enough to get you food and other essentials; otherwise, they may just give you a larger stipend and expect all of those things to come out of it. Some programs set up all of your living arrangements, whereas others may leave that up to you.
Since the area of mathematical biology is an interdisciplinary and growing field, it can be difficult to decide if you would fit in at a program that is meant for mathematics or biology students. I would suggest that you look into all types of programs, because even if the program does not specifically say that one of the concentrations is mathematical biology, there may be someone there who would enjoy having a student interested in the area. Contact people in the programs you are interested in to find out.
Another option: if you know a specific project you would like to work on, then contact individual professors. They may have grants to support summer students. The downside to this would be that you wouldn’t be in an organized program with the benefits mentioned above.
If you notice that any of the links below have become inactive, please let me know (Laura463 {AT} hotmail {DOT} com). I hope that you find this helpful!
National Science Foundation Research Experiences
for
Undergraduates (REU) - http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/index.jsp
American Mathematical Society listing of REUs - http://www.ams.org/employment/reu.html
Rutgers University: DIMACS/Math Dept - http://www.dimacs.rutgers.edu/REU/
New York University School of Medicine; Sackler Institute - http://www.med.nyu.edu/sackler/programs/summer.html
Mayo Clinic - http://www.mayo.edu/mgs/surf.html
Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute - http://math.asu.edu/~mtbi/ (for
minority students)
Mount Sinai School of Medicine - http://www.mssm.edu/gradschool/surp/index.shtml
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/10150.cfm
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - http://www.cshl.edu/URP/
National
Institutes of Health - http://www.training.nih.gov/student/internship/internship.asp
UCLA - http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/asis/srp/srpapply.htm
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center -http://www.fhcrc.org/education/undergraduates/
Santa Fe Institute - http://www.santafe.edu/education/fellowships-undergraduate.php
Siteman Cancer Center - http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/internal.aspx?id=254
Penn State -Behrend (Erie)- http://vortex.bd.psu.edu/~mathdept/research/REU.php3
Boston University - http://www.bu.edu/eng/reu/
MIT Computational and Systems Biology - http://csbi.mit.edu/outreach/outreach_programs/summerintern
University of Minnesota - http://www.cbs.umn.edu/main/summer_research/
UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Math (IPAM)- http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/rips2008/
Albany Medical College- http://www.amc.edu/Academic/GraduateStudies/SummerResearch.html
Center for Disease Control and Prevention - http://www.cdc.gov/employment/studentjobs.htm#internships
University of Massachusetts Medical School - http://www.umassmed.edu/summer/ (for minority students)
Mathematical Biosciences Institute - http://mbi.osu.edu/eduprograms/2008description.html
MD Anderson Cancer Center - http://www.mdanderson.org/prof_education/healthscience/display.cfm?id=d21e743f-7d1e-11d4-aec700508bdcce3a&method=displayfull
Also check out: http://www.cmu.edu/mcs/research/rsch_programs.html and http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/intern.html