Welcome to the 2022 Summer Internship Program

Entering an NIH campus before you have your badge

When community levels are elevated to medium or high, visitors to federally owned or leased facilities will be asked to provide information about their COVID vaccination status. (Check current community levels here)

• Visitors must attest to their current vaccination status. The security staff at the point of entry will ask the visitor a series of questions to determine vaccination status. Personnel that have attested to completing a primary vaccination series or more will be permitted to enter NIH facilities.  
• If visitors are not fully vaccinated or decline to answer about their vaccination status, they will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test result from within the previous 72 hours. Results must be from a test authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to detect current infection and produce a dated result. The test results may from a PCR tests conducted by a licensed testing location (e.g., your primary care provider, pharmacy, testing site, etc.) or a proctored antigen test. Negative at-home test results that are not proctored by a qualified medical provider will not be accepted as proof of testing.

Please note, visitors that do not provide verbal attestation of vaccination or a valid test result from the past 72 hours will not be permitted in NIH facilities or on NIH campuses.

The 2022 NIH Summer Handbook is now HERE!

Even though the 2022 NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP) will include both virtual and in-person interns, we aim to provide you all with a full-time biomedical research experience.  It is our hope that many of you will decide to include research as an important component of your future career, and we hope you will end the summer with a deeper understanding of how scientific investigation works and what it entails.  Although research should be your first priority during your virtual stay at the NIH, we encourage you to find the time to participate in career development activities, learn to ensure your well-being, and reach out to the community around you. We will continue offering our entire summer curriculum virtually.

First: Let's clarify the complex summer plan for 2022.

If you are a Summer Intern, YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE. Read on to learn more about how the program will work: the activities included and the system you will use to access NIH resources.

If you are a High School Summer Intern, YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE TOO. Keep reading. But also be certain to check out the detailed description of the HS-SIP curriculum instead of the SIP curriculum.

If you were not selected as a summer intern but are interested in participating in virtual summer events offered by the NIH, take a look at the 2022 Virtual Summer Enrichment Curriculum or the 2022 Virtual Summer Enrichment Curriculum for High School Students and Recent High School Graduates, a listing of NIH science activities that are open to ALL young scientists this summer.

American Sign Language interpreting services, CART services, and other reasonable accommodations are available upon request. Individuals who need interpreting services and/or other reasonable accommodations to participate in this event, should contact OITE-EventServices@od.nih.gov or the NIH Interpreting Office directly, via email, at nih@ainterpreting.com. Requests should be made at least five business days in advance, when possible, in order to ensure interpreter availability.

Summer Internship Program Activities

The summer program plan will consist of multiple elements. The idea is that each intern will work with his/her mentor to create a summer plan that supplements the intern’s virtual or in-person project with other career, wellness, and scientific development activities to help the intern explore his/her interests and create a meaningful full-time experience. Be certain to talk with your summer mentor and create a summer plan BEFORE registering for these activities. Here is a brief list of your summer options with links that will connect you to additional information.

• Most important: Each intern will focus a significant part of his/her effort and time on a summer project. You will work on you project under the supervision of your summer mentor.
  
  
• A SIP curriculum, provided by OITE, that will include orientations for both HS-SIP and SIP participants in addition to series of workshops addressing becoming a resilient scientist (with associated discussion sessions), career development for high school students, graduate and/or professional school preparation for college students, and career development and science skills. (If you are in HS-SIP, please check out the HS-SIP curriculum instead.)
  
  These workshops are scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons to permit interns in the western time zones to participate.The workshops (but not the orientations) will be available to interested students in the extramural community, as they were last year.
  
  

• TWO IMPORTANT SUMMER TRAINING EVENTS

  Overview of Summer Intern Laboratory and COVID-19 Safety: This one-hour training will provide summer interns an overview of important safety-related topics, resources, and helpful contact information to prepare them for a safe learning experience this summer. It will be offered virtually twice: Wednesday, May 18^th, 3:00-4:00 pm (ET) and Wednesday, June 1^st, 11:30 am-12:30 pm, (ET). ALL in-person interns must attend one of these sessions before their starting date; virtual interns are also invited. If you are unable to attend either of these sessions, you can watch a recording of the training by clicking on one of the the registration links.

  Ethics in Research Environments for Summer Interns: This important training session is scheduled for Friday, July 1^st, 10:00 am-12:00 pm. We recommend that all summer interns attend. After a discussion of the importance of the responsible conduct of research, the session will focus on the use of animals in research, human subjects research, identifying research misconduct, data and authorship, and how research misconduct is handled.

• Intensive Summer Series: These two series will focus on (1) clinical trials and (2) Health Disparities. They will be available only to SIP participants.
  
  1. Clinical Trials
  2. Health Disparities
• Summer Journal Clubs: Journal clubs are small groups that get together to read scientific papers on a topic of joint interest. By participating, you can meet other summer interns, learn about new techniques and discoveries, and develop the ability to read papers critically. As in past years, we have offered more advanced NIH trainees the opportunity, working in pairs, to run a 4 to 6 week journal club during the period between June 13^th and July 29th, 2022. All journal clubs for 2022 will be meet virtually.
  
  

• Summer Lecture Series:

  June 24, 2022
  A Conversation with Dr. Larry Tabak
  Lawrence A. Tabak, DDS/PhD
  Acting Director, National Institutes of Health
  2:00-3:00 pm (ET); Register

  July 5, 2022
  A Conversation with Dr. Janine Clayton
  Janine Clayton, MD
  Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health, NIH
  Director, NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health
  1:00-2:00 pm (ET); Register
  
  July 14, 2022
  A Conversation with Dr. Tony Fauci
  Anthony S. Fauci, MD
  Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH
  Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the United States
  11:00-11:45 am (ET); Register

• In Their Own Words: The NIH Experiences and Career Paths of Prior and Current NIH Trainees. In this series, past and current NIH summer interns and postbacs from disadvantaged backgrounds and groups underrepresented in the sciences will talk about their research and share insights into what it's like to work at the NIH. They will also discuss their educational and career journeys, including their paths to the NIH and the challenges they faced along the way.

• The 2022 Virtual Graduate & Professional School Fair: This year the fair is scheduled for July 18-21, with live workshops on the 18^th and online exhibitor sessions on the ^19th, 2^0th, and 21st. As of today, more than 300 institutions have registered to participate
  
  
• Virtual Summer Poster Day:
  
  

  Summer Poster Day 2022 will take place virtually on August 3rd and August 4th. Registration will open June 13th and close July 7th.

  If you are a summer intern, Summer Poster Day is your time to share the research and creative projects you have been conducting at the NIH with the broader NIH community and your family and friends! At the same time, you will develop your communication and networking skills.

  Any student (high school, college, medical/dental, or graduate) working in an intramural research group this summer may present. You might not have results, but you can still present background information on your project, any data you may have collected, or a discussion of the technical problems you encountered. You can present ideas on and approaches to a project. Even although your presentation will be virtual, we hope you will receive questions and comments about your work. You will have a chance to practice communicating your scientific ideas and results with broader audiences. We hope this event will bring our community closer during this time of social distancing.

OITE staff Members Are Here to Help You Master resilience skills and attend to your well-being.

The last several years have been stressful for all of us. As scientists, we can do our best work when we cultivate our well-being and resilience and learn to manage our stress. Take time this summer to master these important skills. The OITE is happy to speak with you about your career progression, applications to graduate or professional school, and issues that are affecting your work while "here" for the summer.

• OITE Career Counselors are available for virtual 1:1 meetings to discuss career decision making, resume reviews, and more; make an appointment here: https://www.training.nih.gov/career_services/appointments.
• If you are interested in advice regarding medical or graduate school applications, please attend our weekly drop-in Q&A sessions; they are listed on the OITE Upcoming Events page: https://www.training.nih.gov/events/upcoming.
• Our Wellness team offers opportunities to connect including resilience discussion groups, mindfulness meditation, and opportunities to journal. You will find them described on the webpage entitled Summer Intern Wellness "at" the NIH. If you need additional help, please email OITE-Wellness@nih.gov
• OITE can also refer you to other NIH wellness resources and, when appropriate, we will offer to help you speak with your mentors.

Remember: A summer research experience will have its challenging moments. Trainees who take advantage of all the resources available to them deal more effectively with these challenges.

 
Accessing NIH Resources Remotely: a Message from the NIH Center for Information Technology

NIH Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Welcome to the NIH 2022 Summer Internship Program! To ensure you can successfully work on your research project remotely, NIH is offering a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that gives you access to the appropriate NIH resources.

What Is VDI?

VDI is a technology that allows you to access a virtual desktop environment from any computer. With VDI, you can securely access NIH resources, such as your NIH email, web browsers, web conferencing tools, file-storage and file-sharing tools, Microsoft 365 applications, and scientific applications—all from your personal computer.

Read more about VDI and take a look at the comprehensive guides created by the NIH Center for Information Technology (CIT) to help you gain access.