Paid Summer Research Pathways Internship

Sustainable Research Pathways is run by the Sustainable Horizons Institute and connects students and faculty at U.S. colleges and universities with researchers on U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory and NSF National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot projects. Applicants attend a matching workshop in November 2026 to meet project leaders, and those who match can go on to a paid 10-week onsite summer research experience in 2027. The programme began at Berkeley Lab in 2015 and has fostered nearly 700 connections between lab scientists, faculty and students.

What you get:

• A pre-workshop Q&A webinar and an interactive Matching and Exploratory Workshop, November 3 to 6, 2026
• The chance to match with a project leader for a paid 10-week onsite summer research experience in 2027
• Onboarding into a professional scientific community, with cohort activities during and after summer 2027
• Post-summer CULTIVATE Conversations virtual seminars and meet-ups
• Some funds to present your summer results at a scientific conference

What you'll do:

• Meet project leaders at the November workshop and discuss possible collaborations
• If matched, work onsite for 10 weeks in summer 2027 on AI, high-performance computing, or computational and data science projects
• Join a summer kick-off, a midterm check-in and an end-of-summer celebration, then present results at a conference in spring 2028

Key dates:

• Applications and recommendation letters due 1:00 PM PDT, September 30, 2026
• Welcome reception November 3, 2026
• Matching workshop November 3 to 6, 2026
• Onboarding winter and spring 2027
• Research activities summer 2027
• Conference presentations spring 2028

More information:

• Participating labs include Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest and Sandia National Laboratories
• The organisers strongly discourage using ChatGPT or similar AI tools to write your application
• Contact SRP@shinstitute.org or info@shinstitute.org

• Must be a full-time faculty member or a student at an accredited U.S. degree-granting institution of higher education
• Community college, undergraduate and graduate students may apply on their own if not applying as part of an SRP faculty team
• Must be 18 or older
• Students need a letter of recommendation, which must be received by the September 30 deadline
• Application asks for basic information, a resume or CV of 3 pages or less, a short biography, research and technical interests, and a brief motivation statement
• Project leader track requires an active NAIRR Pilot or DOE National Laboratory Computing Sciences funded project