Bridge Beyond Carolina Internships
The Bridge Beyond Carolina program supports students who desire an internship as an opportunity to explore a non-faculty career path.
Available Internships
- Digital Library Editor and Content Curator Internship, The National Humanities Center
- Faculty and Graduate Student Professional Development Internship, The National Humanities Center
- Exploring Large Language Models (LLM) in Game Design Internship, Lost Boys Interactive
- Cannabis Policy and Law Research and Content Creation Internship, Davis Legal, PLLC
- Science and Technology Development Internship, North Carolina Biotechnology Center
- SSES Justice Practice Area Internship, RTI International
Digital Library Editor and Content Curator Internship, The National Humanities Center
We know that humanists provide insights on the historical dimensions of contemporary issues. By contextualizing primary sources, humanists not only provide a fact-based history but also encourage and teach critical thinking. Engaging with primary sources from the past makes students more critical readers in the present. Open access to contextualized primary sources and public scholarship is critical in the battle against misinformation. To connect students, educators, and learners to vetted resources, the National Humanities Center (NHC) has created, curated, and maintained continuous access to thousands of scholarly-authored essays and annotated primary sources.
Having maintained continuous access to freely available, humanities reference resources on its website for over two decades, the NHC has a proven track record of being a stable digital repository for scholarly-developed resources. In collaboration with our talented Fellows and humanities scholars, the NHC has published over 7,000 authoritative, accessible, and widely-used humanities resources that inform secondary and post-secondary classrooms.
This internship is an opportunity to learn about digital publishing, collection development and management, and public humanities writing. The intern will edit scholarly essays and primary source guides from our collection of resources for the public. The intern will also use their scholarly expertise to write and publish an essay and primary source guide on a topic of their choice. For technical work, the internship will be tailored to the intern's technical expertise and they will receive any training needed.
This position can be hybrid or in-person.
Internship Key Tasks:
- Editing content in the NHC Digital Library:
- This includes video content from NHC professional development events, scholarly essays, and primary source guides.
- This intern will have the opportunity to learn about scholarly writing for a public audience and best practices in SEO for scholarly content.
- Develop a guide that they will present at the Graduate Student Summer Residency on scholarly writing for a public audience and best practices in SEO for scholarly content
- Write and publish an essay and primary source guide on a topic of their choice for the NHC Digital Library
Internship Outcomes:
- Develop professional relationships with the NHC staff, especially those focused on web development and communications.
- Learn about working at a non-profit organization
- Engage with and apply digital processes in search engine optimization, database management, and inclusive metadata
- Present a guide on writing for a public audience and best practices in SEO for scholarly content to about 40 graduate students
- Publish a scholarly essay and primary source guide for the NHC website
If you have any questions about this internship, please contact Meredith Graham (mgraham@nationalhumanitiescenter.org), associate director of education programs and digital projects.
Faculty and Graduate Student Professional Development Internship, The National Humanities Center
The National Humanities Center hosts professional development workshops and institutes for graduate students and university faculty and staff. We offer experiences in a safe and non-judgemental space for faculty and graduate students to reconsider topics like public scholarship, collaborative writing, and inclusive teaching.
This internship is an opportunity for you to meet scholars and graduate students from all over the country, learn about logistics and program design of hosting a professional development event, and assist with the creation of content for a public audience resulting from each event for publication on the NHC website. The intern will also plan and host a workshop at the Graduate Student Summer Residency. For technical work, the internship will be tailored to the intern's technical expertise and they will receive any training needed.
This is an in-person position.
Required Attendance at the following summer institutes:
- June 10–14, Faculty & Staff Podcasting Institute
- July 1–3, Responsible AI Summit with Google
- July 15–19, Graduate Student Summer Residency
Internship Key Tasks:
- Assist with logistical details for professional development events for faculty and graduate students, including management of an Airtable database
- Edit recordings and writing of speakers and scholars who attend the events for publication on the NHC website. The intern will be credited as an editor. Examples of those recordings or writings include:
- Video recordings of lectures at the Graduate Student Summer Residency on inclusive teaching and learning, grant writing, public scholarship, and public engagement
- Educational resources developed on the topic of ethics and artificial intelligence
- Podcast episodes and trailers
- Develop an hour-long presentation for the Graduate Student Summer Residency on a topic of your choice and publish it as a resource on the NHC Digital Library
Internship Outcomes:
- Develop professional relationships with the NHC staff and over 200 institute participants
- Learn about working at a non-profit organization
- Engage with and apply digital processes in search engine optimization, database management, and inclusive metadata
- Attend and participate in three NHC institutes
- Present on a topic of your choice and publish it as a resource for the NHC Digital Library
If you have any questions about this internship, please contact Meredith Graham (graham@nationalhumanitiescenter.org), associate director of education programs and digital projects.
Exploring Large Language Models (LLM) in Game Design Internship, Lost Boys Interactive
Lost Boys Interactive (LBI) is at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge Large Language Model (LLM) technology into the realm of video game development. This internship is centered around exploring and advancing the capabilities of LLMs in creating deeply engaging, story-driven game experiences. Our focus is on pushing the boundaries of narrative AI, leveraging recent breakthroughs in few-shot learning, and emergent NLP capabilities.
What You'll Do:
- Navigate the LLM Landscape: LLMs, while powerful, are not yet a mature technology. They often produce narratives that are a blend of various personalities, lacking distinct character. You'll experiment with various strategies to overcome this, enhancing our LLMs' ability to create unique, consistent narratives.
- Innovate in Prompt Engineering: Prompt engineering is a new field, as much an art as it is a science. You'll develop frameworks to evaluate and refine our LLM's narrative capabilities, contributing to the art of storytelling through AI.
- Research in Character Simulation: Delve into the fascinating realm of character simulation, focusing on integrating mood/emotion recognition, long/short term memory, and autonomous planning capabilities using LLMs and combined with agent simulation. This work aims to create more lifelike, dynamic characters in game narratives.
- Tackle Computational Challenges: The most advanced LLMs are resource-intensive. Help us investigating strategies for improving the computational efficiency of LLMs in narrative tasks. Explore advanced quantization, the effectiveness of smaller, mixed-expert models, and alternatives to traditional transformer architecture (state-space, retnet...).
Who We're Looking For:
- PhD student in AI, Machine Learning, Computational Linguistics, or related fields.
- Enthusiasts of AI's potential in creative industries, especially gaming.
- Innovators with a knack for problem-solving and a love for storytelling.
- Team players who are as excited about learning as they are about contributing.
Why Join Us:
- Be part of a pioneering team pushing the boundaries of AI in gaming.
- Work in an inspiring, creative, and diverse environment.
- Gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge AI technologies.
- Competitive internship benefits and flexible working arrangements.
Cannabis Policy and Law Research and Content Creation Internship, Davis Legal, PLLC
Davis Legal, PLLC is a boutique cannabis law practice based in Raleigh, North Carolina serving cannabis companies across the United States. Cannabis law and policy is rapidly changing at both the federal and state level. In a very short period of time, cannabis has gone from prohibition to a multi-billion-dollar industry. These changes have spurred growth in the related sectors of psychedelics and plant-medicine. Staying on top off the relevant regulations, administrative guidance and press is both critical and extremely difficult for companies and individuals operating in these sectors. It's a cutting-edge industry facing unique challenges with abundant opportunity for those who like a challenge.
Davis Legal seeks to create a database for the cannabis industry to assist interested stakeholders in navigating these difficulties. We are seeking an intern who has an interest in emerging industries, public policy and research. This internship is an opportunity to learn about not just cannabis law and policy, but how individuals and companies who enter unregulated markets operate and develop. The intern will research and collect information relevant to the various industries mentioned above from a variety of sources. The intern will work closely with Davis Legal to create materials for clients in these industries and for public consumption. If desired, the intern will have the opportunity to work with major stakeholders in the cannabis industry and get hands-on business experience.
This position is remote.
Internship Key Tasks:
- Research and analysis of various legal and media sources.
- Assist in development of online regulatory compliance tool.
- Research topics for newsletters, social media marketing and educational videos.
- Write and publish blogs on various topics of interest chosen by the intern.
- Brainstorm and assist in creation of other educational materials.
Internship Outcomes:
- Develop professional relationships with cannabis industry stakeholders.
- Learn about working in both regulated and unregulated industries.
- Present compliance analysis to clients of Davis Legal and other members of the cannabis business community.
- Learn how to develop and manage an online informational platform.
- Create various educational and informational materials for the cannabis industry and other related areas of interest like psychedelic medicine and plant-medicine.
If you have any questions about this internship, please contact Morgan Davis (morgan@morgandavislegal.com), Founder of Davis Legal, PLLC.
Science and Technology Development Internship, North Carolina Biotechnology Center
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech) is a private non-profit corporation created by the State of North Carolina and supported by the General Assembly. The Center's mission is to accelerate life sciences technology-based economic development through innovation, commercialization, and business growth. NCBiotech's vision is for North Carolina to be a global life sciences leader. The Center's Science & Technology Development (SciTech) team fosters scientific innovation and collaboration in North Carolina by providing grant funding to universities and nurturing scientific collaborations.
Internship Activities
The intern will work closely with SciTech staff on several projects intended to provide useful professional growth experience relating to the design, administration, and promotion of our grant funding programs. Specific tasks will include:
- Analyze keywords and other data from life sciences research grants submitted to NCBiotech and/or from federal grants awarded to NC-based university principal investigators. Detect emerging and converging areas of research for NCBiotech to consider for targeted future support.
- Create/update targeted marketing lists for SciTech newsletters, grant announcements, and similar communications.
- Attend and/or assist SciTech staff with several NCBiotech-sponsored events supporting the local life sciences community.
Internship Outcomes:
- Gain experience in university-directed grants programs and processes.
- Become familiar with the perspective of an established research funder.
- Utilize and apply digital processes across a variety of platforms (grants administration database, customer relationship management (CRM) system, others) to identify trends and exciting new areas of cutting-edge life sciences research.
- Develop professional relationships with NCBiotech staff and researchers in academia and industry.
- The intern will have the option to work both on-site and remotely as appropriate.
If you have any questions about this internship, please contact Dr. Rob Lindberg (rob_lindberg@ncbiotech.org), Vice President of Science & Technology Development.
SSES Justice Practice Area Internship, RTI International
Social, Statistical and Environmental Sciences (SSES) performs a wide range of research and technical services focused on important public policy issues in health, environment, education, criminal justice, and social welfare. Over 3,000 staff support more than 1,000 projects each year. We are passionate about Improving the Human Condition, and believe Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging must permeate all that we do.
The Justice Practice Area
Our work is building the evidence base to advance justice, safety, and resilience in our communities. We seek to (1) understand the prevalence, characteristics, and correlates of crime and victimization and (2) develop and assess strategies to promote safety, accountability, and resilience. We are organized around the primary stakeholders in and consumers of our research, evaluation, quality assurance, and knowledge translation projects. These stakeholders include victim services providers, public health entities, law enforcement, and agencies in judicial and correctional systems, as well as the communities that these agencies and systems serve. The Justice Practice Area includes a wide variety of experts to lead and support projects that encompass cross-sector and multidisciplinary approaches to advance science and promote justice. The most important aspect of what we do is conducting work that is practical and impactful to the agencies and individuals working to promote justice, safety, and resilience.
Internship Summary
RTI International is excited to share this Scope of Work to identify a University of North Carolina doctoral student to participate in an internship within the Justice Practice Area for Summer 2024. This internship will allow the student to collaborate on a national research project focusing on understanding the implementation, reach, and impact of Clean Slate policies that are focused on clearing or sealing criminal records to allow individuals to participate more fully in employment, housing, and civic engagement. We encourage interested graduate student interns to read more about the Clean Slate Initiative here.
The graduate student intern should anticipate that they will have the opportunity to participate in several core project activities, including collaborating with RTI colleagues with expertise in economics, criminology, law, and quantitative and qualitative research; preparing project deliverables and manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals; engaging in dissemination strategies; and participating in RTI team and external client meetings. We envision that a graduate student intern will be a fundamental and contributing colleague on the project team and we are committed to providing mentorship and development opportunities to allow for professional growth during the internship term. Dr. Pamela K. Lattimore and Dr. Kristin Bechtel will serve as the managers for this internship. The internship will be remote as project colleagues are mostly teleworkers, but if there are opportunities for RTI campus meetings, the graduate student intern will be welcome to attend.
Internship Core Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities for include:
- Conducting literature reviews scanning research on record clearing policies and practices (e.g., sealing, expungements, policy implementation)
- Obtaining, reviewing, and summarizing data on eligibility and exclusionary criteria for record clearing policies
- Supporting the development and refinement of qualitative instruments and approaches (e.g., surveys, notification messages to prompt participant response)
- Participating in data collection and analysis, including cleaning and coding of data
- Assisting with the completion of IRB materials and supporting any follow-up
- Contributing to written deliverables and reviewing work products for accuracy and completion
- Documenting team and client meeting highlights and facilitating next steps internally to ensure the project activities and tasks are completed in a timely manner
- Ensuring consistent and clearly written and verbal communication between team members and clients
Internship Learning Objectives
- Learning objectives to be achieved in partnership with the graduate student intern, include:
- Increasing subject matter expertise on record clearing policies, such as distinguishing between petition and automated policies and their distinct benefits and challenges, understanding record clearing implementation needs and associated data challenges, identifying potential solutions to allow for a more robust implementation of these policies, and understanding the goals for future impact of research aimed to identify what components of these reforms allow for the largest number of people to benefit from the legal remedy and increase successful reintegration within society (e.g., housing, employment, voting, and advance racial equity).
- Developing policy-relevant writing skills for policy makers, practitioners, and community.
- Growing professional network with RTI and external clients.
- Expanding upon quantitative and qualitative research skills on a policy-focused project.
- Understanding grant and contract management responsibilities
Internship Qualifications
Successful graduate student intern qualifications include:
- Be currently enrolled in a doctoral program in a related field, such as, public policy, criminal justice/criminology, economics, sociology, etc.
- Have prior experience with research through coursework, research internships, or employment.
- Have a strong interest in policy-relevant research, especially related to the criminal legal system, reintegration, collateral consequences, etc.
- Be curious, humble, organized, and an enthusiastic team member who can balance working independently with knowing that asking questions is encouraged to help support learning, as well as to efficiently develop solid, beneficial, and timely work products.
- Be able to work successfully in a remote work environment, including being an effective communicator in writing and verbally, to ask and address questions, manage task responsibilities, and schedule and participate in video conference meetings.
- Have 20+ hours/week available to work. While some project tasks can be completed outside regular business hours (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM), there are regularly scheduled project calls that the intern would be asked to participate in.
- Have basic project management skills, including the use of Microsoft office software (MS Word, Excel PPT).