About this Resource
Summer internships fuse connections between academia and industry, and enable HCI students to gain valuable real-world experience. The list below represents a sampling of positions advertised in 2013. Composing a complete list of open positions is not our intent; rather, this list should serve as a starting point for students who are curious about the types of internships available and common organizations that host summer interns.
Do you know of a good internship to add? Please send an email including a link to a formal internship description to hci-education@acm.org.
2014 Internships
Adobe Research
About the internships: At least 47 positions advertised. Topical keywords include: graphics, vision, photography, data-driven design, human-computer interaction, computational design, games, simulation, control, recognition, rendering, software development tools, visualization, machine learning, semantic analysis, visual search, deep learning, cloud computing, data mining, predictive analysis, procedural modeling…
Location: USA: Cambridge, MA; Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA
Level of Education:PhD students
Additional Information: Adobe coordinates internships by mentors; a recent list can be found here. To apply for a position, email <researcher-name>@adobe.com.
Amazon Research
About the internships: Hosted by the Universal Shopping Experience (USX) Group. Topical keywords include: human-computer interaction, information visualization, computer and 3D graphics, machine learning, crowdsourcing, design, augmented reality, wearables, NUI, mobile devices, Internet-of-Things. One key deliverable is to create a concept prototype that can inspire a real product at Amazon (as opposed to writing a research paper).
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Level of Education: Graduate level
Additional Information: To apply, please send an email with a small paragraph stating why you would like to work with us and a copy of your most current resume to gonzalor@amazon.com
Autodesk Research
About the internships: Interns collaborate with the Autodesk Research Interface Research group. Topical keywords include: software learnability, interactive tutorials, video interaction, 3D user interfaces, interactive visualizations, natural language input, mobile/wearable user interfaces, robotics and fabrication
Location: Toronto, Canada
Level of Education: PhD students
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
Barnes & Noble/Nook
About the internships: TheBarnes & Noble/ Nook consumer engineering department is looking for a user experience/ user interface intern to help develop new users interfaces for consumer tablets
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Level of Education: Bachelors (with 2+ years’ of study) or Masters students
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
Berkman Center for Internet & Privacy
About the internshipsThe Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University studies issues including law, technology, innovation, and knowledge; the relationships between Internet and civic activity; and the intersection of technology, learning, and development. 2014 internships are associated with the following projects and research groups: Chilling Effects, CopyrightX, Cyberlaw Clinic, Digital Media and Communications Squad, Digital Media Law Project, Digital Problem-Solving Initiative, Freedom of Expression, Geek Cave, Internet Governance, Internet Robustness- Software Development, Harvard Open Access Project, Media Cloud- Research and Technical Development, metaLAB, Online Intermediaraies, Privacy Tools for Sharing Research Data, Student Privacy Initiative, and Youth and Media.
Location: Cambridge, MA
Level of Education: Different levels of academic study including Bachelor’s, Masters, Law, and PhD Programs
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
eBay Research
About the internships: eBay Research Labs’ HCI group is searching for 2014 interns in the following areas: social behavior analysis and user modeling, linguistic behavior analysis and user modeling, mobile prototyping, mobile design, and designing data for personalization
Location: San Jose, CA, USA
Level of Education: Graduate students; credentials vary by position
Additional Information: Interested applications should prepare a resume and cover letter explaining their interest in an internship in eBay Research Labs’ HCI group “to let us know why you want to work with eBay and
eBay HCI group in particular and what you will bring to our team”
About the internships:Facebook is looking for a number of interns in computer science, human-computer interaction, and related fields. Topical keywords include: analytics; data-centered design and operations; data warehousing, reporting, and visulaization; design; hardware design; IT; infrastructure; monetization; sales; security; software engineering; systems
Location: Menlo Park, CA, USA
Level of Education: Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students; some technical expertise required
Additional Information: Internship postings are managed through the Facebook Careers website
Google Research
About the internships: Following the mantra “focus on the user and all else will follow,” Google’s User Experience Research group is hiring multiple summer interns to design and conduct user studies and current and future google products
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA; additional positions in Little Rock, AK, USA
Level of Education: Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students
Additional Information: A version of the internship posting can be found here
Microsoft Research
About the internships: Instead of advertising specific projects, MSR encourages perspective interns to visit the websites of different research labs in order to identify topics of interest, and propose projects where student and researcher interests overlap. Example research topics include: human-computer interaction; machine learning; graphics and multimedia; privacy and security; information retrieval and search; algorithms and theory; architecture; distributed systems; computational biology; computer science; economics; networks; social media
Location: Redmond, WA, USA; Mountain View, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA; Balgalore, India; Cambridge, UK; Beijing, China; Cairo, Egypt
Level of Education: PhD candidates
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
Microsoft Research New England- Social Media Collective
About the internships: Interested interns may collaborate with researchers or work independently. Topical keywords include: ethics; big data; algorithms; computational culture; entertainment; news; industries; audiences; frameworks for understanding digital labor; urban informatics; crisis communication; personal relationships; digital media
Location: Cambridge, MA, USA
Level of Education: PhD candidates
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab
About the internships: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is looking for summer interns “to develop novel interactive visualization tools to interrogate and gain new insight from our wealth of science data.”
Location: Pasadena, CA, USA
Level of Education: Undergraduate and Graduate students
Additional Information: Email a resume, cover letter, and design portfolio (if you have one) to:hi@jpl.nasa.gov. Cover letter should explain the following:
1. Why do you want to work in visualization?
2. What visualization experience do you have?
3. What is your disciplinary background and how can it support an inter-disciplinary visualization practice?
Note: Interns must be U.S. Citizens
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
About the internships: The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory partners with the Department of Health and Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate to design tools and technologies that support emergency response. For open summer internships, topical keywords include: user experience, user research, information anlaytics, design, prototype emergency operations
Location: Richland, WA, USA
Level of Education: Masters and PhD students
Additional Information: Internship postings can be found here
PARC Research
About the internships: PARC is looking for at least 16 interns for summer 2014. Topical keywords include: relational data; statistical models; interface algorithms; machine learning; data mining; big data; social network analysis; support; conversation analysis; visual design; interaction design; graphic design; user studies; distributed systems; prototyping; mobile development; mobile design; health; well being
Location: Palo Alto, CA, USA
Level of Education: Graduate students: Various internships require Masters students, PhD students, or PhD candidates
Salesforce
About the internships: Salesforce designs and develops customer management software. Among other positions, Salesforce is seeking a summer intern to collaborate with the User Research group on user research, user testing, and user-centered design; Note that strong prototyping skills are required
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Level of Education: Bachelors and Masters students
Additional Information: Job postings are on individual pages; Masters internship posting is here
About the internships: Twitter is looking for “Data Scientist Interns” to help extract meaning from the company’s massive data set, and use this information to drive future products. Topical keywords include: big data, data mining, social phenomena
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Level of Education: Masters and PhD students
Additional Information: Internship posting can be found here
WalmartLabs
About the internships: Walmartlabs eCommerce department is looking for at least three summer interns. Topical keywords include: user experience, user research, design, interaction mobile
Location: San Bruno, CA
Level of Education: Bachelors and Masters students
Additional Information: Internship postings can be found here
Yahoo! Research- Mobile Sensing & User Behavior group
About the internships: This research group is in search of students working on qualitative or quantitative user studies, large-scale data processing, mobile design & apps, mobile sensing, or search
Location: Silicon Valley, CA, USA
Level of Education: PhD students (at least 2 years into program)
Additional Information: PhD students fitting the above criteria who are interested in research projects in HCI, or mobile sensing & user behavior, please contact Henriette Cramer to discuss specific possibilities.