This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to intern at Dell Technologies as a Software Engineer Intern on the AI Outcomes team. Over the course of 12 weeks, I focused on enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) by integrating a web search fallback to improve the accuracy and reliability of AI systems. Beyond the technical side, this internship gave me a firsthand look into how large-scale AI systems are developed and deployed. I deepened my skills in software engineering, learned new technologies,… read more about Oyinkansola Oduba '27 - Software Engineer Internship at Dell »
This past summer, I had the privilege of speaking at two major events: the AsiaTechX Summit in Singapore, where I shared perspectives on youth-driven AI education, and at MIT, where I delivered a keynote on the intersection of algorithms and society in the field of artificial intelligence. Both opportunities grew out of my work founding Singapore Youth AI (SYAI), a nonprofit dedicated to making AI literacy accessible. At SYAI, I lead a team of students and young professionals to design and deliver national-level programs.… read more about Zaer Zaqy '28 - National Research and AsiaTechX Summit Presentation in Singapore »
I had the enriching experience of working and conducting research at Duke this past summer. One of my projects was with the OneDukeGen genomic medicine study, which is collecting DNA samples from over 150,000 Duke patients to better understand how genes affect health. Under the guidance of a clinical research genetic counselor, I created materials on genetic conditions including Lynch syndrome, familial hypercholesterolemia, and hereditary amyloidosis, explaining test results, clinical implications, and family impact.… read more about Arielle Kim '26 - Summer Research at Duke »
The theme for my summer internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS) was reflect, iterate, and improve.For 12 weeks, I was a Software Development Engineer Intern on the AWS Resource Explorer Control Plane team. The changes I implemented enhanced state management and reduced overall complexity.These are my top five lessons from my internship:1️⃣ Present work-in-progressRegularly presenting my work, even when it was unfinished, invited valuable feedback and prevented last-minute surprises.2️⃣ Use your… read more about Nia Robinson '26 - Summer Internship at Amazon Web Services (AWS) »
Through DukeEngage, I had the opportunity to intern at Americans for Immigrant Justice, which is non-profit law firm based in Miami, FL.At AIJ, I worked on the front lines of the ongoing U.S. immigration and asylum crisis, providing critical support to individuals navigating the system. I staffed the detention hotline, connecting detainees with legal representation/services and helping them understand their rights. I prepared and submitted key legal documents, conducted in-depth country conditions research to support asylum… read more about Sarah Fong '28 - DukeEngage internship at Americans for Immigrant Justice »
This summer, I was an intern in the Broad Summer Research Program, a 9-week summer research experience at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. I was in the Vázquez-García lab, located at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad, studying computational oncology. Specifically, I explored extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in the context of cancer, as many aggressive cancers with poor treatment responses have high ecDNA content. Using computational methods, we probed large-scale… read more about Megan Tandar '27 - Broad Summer Research Program at MIT »
This past summer, I had the invaluable opportunity to intern for 10 weeks at Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division within their Healthcare Group. Going into the internship, I was both excited and nervous, uncertain about what to expect. Looking back, the experience exceeded my greatest expectations.During the internship, I worked directly with major healthcare companies, which were valued in the multi-million to billion-dollar range. I took on various responsibilities, including conducting detailed financial… read more about Victoria Quimper '26 - Investment Banking Internship in NYC »
This past summer, I conducted research as an intern for the Duke University Superfund Research Center (DUSRC). The DUSRC is supported by a federal grant and focuses on environmental contaminants and their developmental impacts. I worked in the Analytical Chemistry Core in Dr. Lee Ferguson’s lab and Dr. Abigail Joyce’s mentorship. My project was divided into two parts.The first part was method development for detecting unknown per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in river samples. PFAS compounds that are often labeled… read more about Yumi Mizobuchi '27 - Duke University Superfund Research Center Internship »
This summer, I participated in the Duke in Alicante study abroad program, and had the unique opportunity of complete immersion in Spanish language and Culture. For 6 weeks, I lived with an incredible host family from Alicante, and attended intensive Spanish classes at the University of Alicante in the heart of the city.As a part of our program, we took several weekend trips and visited 6 major Spanish cities and towns, including Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Valencia, Guadalest, and Altea. During these trips, we bonded through… read more about Erika Rispoli '26 - Duke in Alicante Study Abroad »
This summer, I interned as an Investment Banking Summer Analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York City. More specifically, I worked their Financial Institutions Group, covering FinTech, insurance, asset management, etc. I worked on multiple live deals as well as client service projects, diving deep into different business models. It was an incredible experience, full of challenges, successes, and a lot of learning. Of the nine-week internship, we had one week of training and eight weeks of work on the desk. The first week,… read more about Sophia Liu '26 - Banking Analyst Internship at Goldman Sachs »
This summer I worked in San Jose, California as a Construction Management Intern with Gilbane Building Company, a leading general contractor across the globe. Gilbane works to collaborate with their clients at they highest level to produce quality projects that directly impact both their communities and society worldwide.My assigned project was in Santa Clara, CA, the heart of the semiconductor manufacturing industry, where Gilbane had partnered with Intel Inc. to expand and streamline the design of their photomasks. These… read more about Kennedy Robinson '25 - Construction Management Internship at Gilbane »
I had an incredible opportunity to work at the UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School this past summer. I participated in the Microbiology Summer Undergraduate Research Program (MicroSURP), a ten-week program for students interested in pursuing a PhD in microbiology or related biomedical sciences. I worked alongside Dr. Anna Konovalova, whose research focuses on how Gram-negative bacteria build and maintain the integrity of their cell envelope. My project involved studying an envelope stress response known as the… read more about Arielle Kim '26 - Microbiology Summer Undergraduate Research Program »
This summer, I researched colorectal cancer at Duke in Dr. Christine E. Eyler’s lab as a Dean’s Summer Research Fellow. My project involved two parts- the first involved creating isogenic cell lines with clinically relevant colorectal cancer mutations. We then irradiated these at varying doses, hoping to assess whether there is genotype-specific epigenetic re-organization. I was able to utilize CRISPR-Cas9 and electroporation techniques to do gene editing. Long term, we’re planning to do drug screens post-radiation… read more about Megan Tandar '27 - Dean’s Summer Research Fellow »
This summer, I worked as an IT Business Analyst Intern at Elevance Health in Norfolk, VA. Elevance Health is a major American health insurer that strives to improve the health of humanity on a holistic level. Some key themes from my summer of personal and professional growth include embracing change, thinking critically, and staying curious, where I have been challenged to view shifts in direction as opportunities for momentum, explore different angles with creativity, and dive into new topics.I worked predominantly with… read more about Jennifer Lee ‘26 - Business Analytics & Product Management Internship at Elevance Health »
This summer, I continued my research with Dr. Kate Scholberg in the Duke Neutrino Group on modeling neutrino emissions from a special, new type of Supernova, called a PDE, or Phase Driven Explosion. A PDE differs from the two known mechanisms that act as a catalyst for a Supernova Event, Neutrino Driven Explosions (NDEs) and Magnetorotational Explosions (MREs) in that its collapse occurs in two segments. When a massive star hits a critical energy density at the end of its lifetime, the matter at its core begins to… read more about Madeleine Roberts ‘25 - Research with Duke Neutrino Group »
This summer I had the opportunity to participate in the Bonaventura Summer Research Fellows Program at Duke’s Marine Lab. The Bonaventura Program is a 10-week paid intensive summer research initiative for undergraduate students. Fellows work alongside a member of the DUML faculty to formulate, conduct, and present their research. I worked in Dr. Dana Hunt’s lab which focuses on studying bacterial interactions with the environment. During the program, my goal was to isolate approximately 200 strains of bacteria to… read more about Akshaya Mohan '27 - Bonaventura Summer Research Fellows Program »
This summer I participated in the Duke in Australia Program, a monthlong immersion up and down eastern Australia that consists of one all-encompassing course called Biogeography in an Australian context. After meeting up with my peers in Los Angeles at the airport, we flew together to Sydney where we met our professor, Dr. Alex Glass, and Teaching Assistant, Jen Glass. After acclimating to the new time zone and unfamiliar location of a new continent, we explored Sydney for a little over a week, journeying through botanical… read more about Alexandra Schaffer ’27 - Duke in Australia »
I spent this summer working at First Eagle Investment Management in New York City as a Business Optimization intern. In this position, I researched how Generative Artificial Intelligence will affect business processes. I had to constantly present new operational plans based on integrating this new technology to executive-level management. I sharpened my public speaking, PowerPoint, and analysis skills. I was able to not only learn how an efficient investment firm is built and run but also learn how these new technologies… read more about Carlos Penzini '26 - Investment Management Internship in NYC »
This summer I was a part of the University of Southern California Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (USC SURE) program which brings in a cohort of students to conduct research at multiple USC laboratories. I was fortunate to work in the Khan Lab under the mentorship of Yasser Khan, Ph.D. and Mohammad Shafiqul Islam. I developed a Spiking Neural Network to detect whether someone is dehydrating during physical activity based on the sodium concentration in their sweat. The previous method requires the sodium… read more about Jaden Coward '26 - Summer Undergraduate Research Experience at USC »
This summer I participated in the Pratt Research Fellows program under Dr. Timothy Dunn and PhD student Kyungdo Kim. My project explored the application of an autoregressive hidden Markov model on behavioral data from Parkinson’s patients. These patients go through various behavioral tests such as walking or finger-tapping since the disease partially manifests as motor disorders, and I would analyze this data to identify clinically meaningful behavioral markers that can classify healthy and unhealthy subjects. This work is… read more about Juliet Jiang '25 - Pratt Research Fellowship »
This summer, I participated in a short-term HIV/AIDS Outreach Virtual Project in partnership with Global Health Uganda (GHU). This project aimed to facilitate the exchange of information, education, and communication about the management of HIV/AIDS for prison inmates in Uganda. This project required doing background research and developing infographics to be translated and distributed to individuals in prisons. More specifically, my research was in regard to how HIV/AIDs is managed by prisoners and sex workers in LICs. Our… read more about Lexie Brzoska '25 - Project with Global Health Uganda »
Over this past summer I got the privilege to travel to Switzerland for Summer Session II as a part of the Duke in Geneva summer program. I was able to take classes in international business and the political philosophy of globalization. Two subjects I had no prior knowledge in WHATSOEVER. A particularly eye opening part of this experience for me was being able to read books in our curriculum about how economies arise and persist, but also seeing how these factors manifest in day to day life in a foreign country.Not only did… read more about Genevieve Jean-Pierre '25 - Duke in Geneva »
I spent my summer of 2022 at Fidelity Investments’ Raleigh-Durham office, working as a full-stack software engineer. It was an invaluable opportunity that allowed me to gain practical industry experience and insights into the constantly evolving world of software development. I enjoyed my experience so much that I decided to return there for my summer 2023 internship, and although I was once again a full-stack developer, my experience could not have been more different! Having two varied experiences allowed me to broaden my… read more about Sharan Sokhi '24 - Software Engineer at Fidelity Investments »
This summer I had the amazing opportunity to participate in the Amgen Scholars Program at Columbia University in New York City. The Amgen Scholars Program is a fully funded research program that allows undergraduate students to conduct hands-on research in the lab alongside top faculty, participate in seminars and networking events, and take part in symposia with their peers and leading scientists. I worked in Dr. Christine Denny's lab, which focuses on studying the molecular mechanisms underlying learning… read more about Carmen Miller '25 - Amgen Scholars Program at Columbia University »
Over the summer, I conducted a 12-week research project with the Duke Cosmology Group. I specifically worked with Erik Peterson, a PhD candidate, and Dr. Dan Scolnic, to evaluate supernova 'siblings', which are supernovae within the same galaxy. A supernova is an extremely bright explosion which generally explodes the same way each time. We can use these bursts of light (which we deem 'standardizable candles') to measure distance and trace the expansion history of our universe. My project will be the first analysis of… read more about Arianna Dwomoh '24 - Research with Duke Cosmology Group »
This summer, I interned at SAS as a Technical Intern on the Cloud Engineering team. My team is primarily concerned with maintaining and improving the cloud-based services used to support and deploy the SAS Customer Intelligence software, though I was tasked with improving the development process for any new engineers on my team. Specifically, I was tasked with creating a brand new command line tool to streamline the development process so that new engineers could begin writing and deploying code for Cloud Engineering on… read more about Trevon Helm '24 - Technical Internship at SAS »
Over the summer, I had the incredible opportunity to work as a Post-Market Engineering Intern within the Supplier Engineering Team (specifically the Metals, Coatings, Facilities & OEM subgroup) at Cook Medical- a privately owned, global medical device company based in Bloomington Indiana. Cook Medical focuses on the design and manufacture of minimally invasive devices for various applications in healthcare. One common application includes the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). As part of the post-market… read more about Christian Pile '25 - Post-Market Engineering Internship at Cook Medical »
This summer I took part in Code Plus which was by Duke OIT. I worked in a team of five to develop a web app under the mentorship of Duke OIT professionals. We worked on essentially building a “data warehouse” for the institutional data at Duke like HR data, Student data and Card Swipe data. I learnt a lot during the program in regards to technical skills as well as how to work and collaborate in a team. I am a computer science major so I really enjoyed being immersed in the experience and having the freedom to build… read more about Hala Mohammed '26 - Code+ Program at Duke »
This summer I was granted the amazing opportunity to intern at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. I interned under the company’s Digital Security and Resilience organization for 12 weeks as a Technical Program Manager intern. This was my first PM-related role so I learned a lot about the functions of strategizing, planning, and collaborating in order to apply new security controls to Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. My team specifically interacts with other teams such as the Data Intelligence team to gain insight on security… read more about Mitchelle Mojekwu ’24 - Technical Program Manager Internship at Microsoft »
This summer I worked at BlackRock as a summer analyst. I was in the technology arm of the firm as an intern on the Aladdin Client Services team. Aladdin is Blackrock’s end to end investment platform. The Aladdin Client Services team works with clients that include respected investment institutions to solve their problems and educate users to improve client experience and improve Aladdin. During the course of my 10 week internship, I gained an in-depth understanding of Aladdin, various Aladdin clients, and the… read more about Alice Wu '23 - Summer Analyst Internship at BlackRock »