Underrepresented Student Internship Program
The Underrepresented Student Internship Program provides the opportunity for undergraduate students from US colleges and universities to receive mentorship and training from NIH Human Biomolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) labs over the summer.

Our 2021 and 2022 interns said:
2023 Interns
Intern | ...will be working with |
---|---|
Barera Ajaz, from Fordham University | the Kim, O'Neill and Gregory labs at the University of Pennsylvania |
Ella Barton, from Mount Holyoke College | the Jain lab at the Washington University School of Medicine |
Alejandra Tapia Batres, from Georgia State University | the Börner lab at Indiana University |
Esonica Charles, from University of Virgin Islands | the Hagood lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center |
Elias Ciudad, from St. Mary´s University | the Satija lab at the New York Genome Center |
Charles Godinez, from Barstow Community College | the Laurent lab at the University of California, San Diego |
Jada Harvey, from Edward Waters University | the Pryhuber lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center |
Harley Hernandez, from State University of New York, New Paltz | the Kim, O'Neill, and Gregory labs at the University of Pennsylvania |
Kanishka Kumar, from California State University, Fullerton | the Angelo lab at Stanford University |
Monica Macharios, from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill | the Spraggins lab at Vanderbilt University |
Maisa Maliha, from Dickinson College | the Blood lab at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center |
Julio Maragall, from Santa Fe College | the Sarder lab at the University of Florida |
Sofia Martin, from St. Edward's University | the Jain lab at the Washington University School of Medicine |
Rosemary McKerley, from Bates College | the Shi lab at University of California San Diego |
Sydney Meyer, from Wheaton College (MA) | the Gehlenborg lab at Harvard Medical School |
Liya Mooradian, Iowa State University of Science and Technology | the Pei lab at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/University of Pennsylvania |
Antonio Moore, Fisk University | the Anderton lab at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory |
Favour Olushola, from Tulane University | the Pasa-Tolic lab at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory |
Arianne Parvaresh-Rizi, from University of Rhode Island | the Tan lab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/ University of Pennsylvania |
Aidan Reyes, from California State University, Los Angeles | the Fan lab at Yale University |
Tofi Soneye, from Fisk University | the Segré lab at Massachusetts Eye & Ear/Harvard Medical School |
Lin Xu, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | the Sarder lab at the University of Florida |
Calling all current and former interns: If you ever participated in HuBMAP research as an undergraduate, we invite you to join the HuBMAP Intern Networking Group on LinkedIn. PIs and mentors are also encouraged to join.
2024 Internships
Information for 2024 summer internships will be made available in late 2023.
Questions? Email us at: internshipapply@hubmapconsortium.org
Eligible students will:
- Be an undergraduate student attending a US institution at the time of application.
- Be college undergraduates in the United States majoring in any of the STEM fields with a minimum of 3.0 grade point average.
- Be a member of an underrepresented group (as defined by NIH). See the NIH criteria.
Preference will be given to students who do not have ready access to biomedical (and/or single cell biology) research opportunities in their home institutions.
Successful applicants will have:
- An interest in and passion for studying biological or computational sciences, or related STEM fields
At least a 3.0 GPA
A demonstrated strong work ethic
Some experience with programming, if applying to a computational program
Some experience with lab work, if applying to an experimental program
A personal statement which outlines their interests and experience
Transcript: Unofficial transcripts are acceptable. Please submit transcripts as an attachment to your application form, as a PDF.
Personal Statement: Please submit a personal statement as an attachment to your application form, briefly describing your background, interest in participating in this summer undergraduate research program in single cell science, and your career goals. Please attach your personal statement in PDF format. Personal statements should be no longer than 2 pages single spaced, font size 11, Times New Roman.
Letters of recommendation: Two letters of recommendation should be sent to the application committee from your references, by the application due date of February 1, 2023. Letters of recommendation should be sent to internshipapply@hubmapconsortium.org.
Accepted students are required to:
- Conduct their own small research project or work on part of an ongoing research project.
- Attend a weekly virtual seminar series that will introduce rapidly progressing medical and basic research areas.
- Complete all Compliance Training, Conflict of Interest Forms and/or any other training deemed necessary for the internship as soon as it is received.
- Report to work on time as designated by the mentor to work on assigned research project. Students are expected to work no more than 40 hours a week.
- Present a virtual poster at the end of the project about their experience. The date of the presentation will be determined by the NIH HuBMAP program.
Due to the ongoing uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person experiences are not guaranteed.
2022 HuBMAP Intern Accomplishments
In 2022, we offered in-person, remote, and hybrid opportunities, and our 13 interns had a rewarding, engaging experience across 13 HuBMAP labs. At the end of the internship, the 2022 interns presented their research findings to the HuBMAP and broader community.
Anusha Thaniana
Anusha performed single-cell RNA-sequencing to determine the activity levels of genes within the heart to study Fontan Associated Liver Disease.
Camryn Pettenger-Willey
Camryn worked at PNNL to optimize a protocol for imaging different versions of proteins within tissues.
Fransiskus (Frans) Agapa
Frans developed a computer program that automatically extracted, prepared, and submitted data and metadata from HuBMAP and the NIH database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGap) to be ingested by the Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE).
Gabrielle LeNoir
Gabrielle analyzed specific cell populations in the female reproductive system to better understand the stages of the menstrual cycle.
Genna Mahabeer
Genna mapped proteins within the red and white pulp regions of the spleen.
Watch Genna’s final presentation
Karli Prather
Karli worked at the Penn Image Computer and Science (PICSL) Lab to develop an interactive and customizable digital representation of the ovary. She built a computer model of the pelvis to give users a point of reference for where the ovary is situated in the body.
Watch Karli’s final presentation
Lesley Aguilar-Salceda
Lesley used single-cell RNA sequencing to study different cell types in the motor cortex of the brain in mice, ferrets, and pigs to find genes that have been conserved throughout evolution.
Watch Lesley’s final presentation
Lin Xu
Lin helped to develop a program that automatically adds different colors to images of tissue slices. By colorizing these images, people are more easily able to understand the structure of the cells and tissues that they see.
Watch Lin’s final presentation
Marielena Grijalva
Marielena optimized the protocol for isolating nuclei from uterine tissue for Singulator, a machine that dissociates tissue into single-cell or nuclei suspensions.
M.J. Hopkins
M.J. determined the optimal concentration of antibodies necessary to characterize the cells from the airway in single-cell techniques.
Mohamed El-Sadec
Mohamed optimized the High-throughput Analysis of Modified Ribonucleoties (HAMR) software which makes notes of nucleotides in RNA sequencing data that have been modified after transcription.
Sangmyung (Sam) Lee
Sangmyung compared Tabula sapiens to HuBMAP’s Human Reference Atlas (HRA). Tabula sapiens is a molecular reference atlas for more than 400 cell types of the human body, and ASCT+B tables are a data framework built by HuBMAP researchers to capture naming terms for anatomical human body parts and spatial reference objects. By comparing the two, the HRA can determine what’s missing, and what needs to be added to improve.
Tram Nguyen
Tram worked on the user interface for the HuBMAP Data Portal by making graphs of existing metadata using the R programming language.
Watch Tram’s final presentation
Interested in viewing the 2021 presentations? View Full Presentation Playlist