Undergraduate Student Internships
Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University internships are available during the summer for motivated undergraduate students. This program provides students with an opportunity to explore the field of integrative health, through networking opportunities with professionals working in a variety of integrative health settings and through personalized mentorship with a Northwestern faculty member conducting integrative health research.
Undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree will gain hands-on experience with integrative health research, receive mentorship from clinical and research faculty, and participate in other scholarly activities. Students and their designated faculty mentor(s) will meet regularly to identify and set in motion a relevant course of scholarly activities, training goals and internship objectives. Please note that this internship focuses on overall professional development and research. This is not a clinical internship.
The summer program is a paid internship. We currently plan to conduct this internship in-person, but reserve the right to transition to remote, if public health concerns warrant. As we aim to increase equity and inclusion within integrative health and research, we encourage students from minoritized and underrepresented communities to apply.
Expectations
Students in the internship program are expected to:
- Work on a minimum of one major research study or scholarly project over the course of their internship experience. The project will be co-developed by the supervising faculty and the student, taking into account the students’ skills and available opportunities. Examples of activities performed by prior interns include conducting literature searches and participating in the writing of journal articles or book chapters, developing data collection systems/helping with data entry and analysis, developing PowerPoint presentations and assisting in collection of quality improvement and patient research assessments.
- Participate in regular meetings with faculty supervisors and attend necessary research trainings related to academic growth and institutional regulatory matters.
- Complete and reflect upon regular readings related to their specific training goals and objectives.
Internships are typically for one academic quarter (10 weeks in length). Hours are determined by arrangement with the faculty mentor. Students are expected to spend a minimum of four days per week during business hours on internship-related activities.
Summer interns will be paid a stipend for their work in alignment with the NIH undergraduate-level standard.
Eligibility
Students must:
- Have completed one year of college (i.e., freshman)
- Have an undergraduate cumulative minimum grade point average (GPA) of >3.5 on a 4.0 scale
- Be 18 years or older at the time the internship begins
Application Materials
Applications for the summer 2024 internship have closed. Information about next summer’s program will be available on this website in January 2025.
2023 Summer Interns
David Ai
MD/MPH student, Baylor College of Medicine
(Faculty Mentor: Dr. Melinda Ring)
Jenna Beebe
Senior, Wheaton College (MA)
(Faculty Mentor: Dr. Judy Moskowitz )
Melissa Espinosa
Junior, DePaul University
(Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bonnie Essner)