2026-2027 High School Intern/Ambassador Position

2026 - 2027 High School Intern / Ambassador Position

The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is an internationally renowned non-profit research institute dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. Founded in 2000 in Seattle, Washington, ISBs goal is to unravel biological complexity by deciphering vast amounts of data in order to gain valuable insights and achieve breakthroughs across scientific disciplines.

We are offering 4 opportunities for high school students. The application process for each of these opportunities is the same. When completing the Google form portion of the application you will be prompted to indicate which of these experiences you are most interested in. The deadline for application is 4:00pm Pacific Time on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. No late applications will be accepted.

Timeline for applying and notifications:

• Mid-January: Application window opens. Use this To-do Checklist to guide you as you prepare and submit your materials.
• March 11: Application window closes promptly at 4:00 pm Pacific Time. Late applications will not be accepted.
• March 12 - April: Application Review. You will be contacted at least two times throughout this time period by email. Please make sure to set your email client to mark emails from "isbscience.org" and "systemsbiology.org" as important and not spam or promotions. If you do not know how to do that, please see this page.
  
  
  
  1. If your application was completely submitted (all parts were received and thoroughly completed), you will receive an email inviting you to sign up for a "Systems are Everywhere" 2-hour workshop.
  2. You will be contacted again by the end of April regarding the status of your application.
     
  
  
  
  
• April 15 - May 31: Phone interviews, video interviews, Q&A Sessions, and informal offers
• June: Formal offer letters sent to selected applicants

Brief Position Descriptions:

1) Systems Thinkers in STEM Ambassadorship (STiSA)

Current 10th and 11th graders can apply for STiSA. All applicants who complete the full application will be accepted into STiSA and can choose whether or not to participate. You can participate in both STiSA and either the internship or DREAM-High, should you be selected. As a STiSA participant, you will first be invited to attend a 2-hour, virtual workshop: "Systems are Everywhere." You will learn about systems modeling and how systems thinking is used in research and careers. You will then have the opportunity to enroll in one of two virtual micro-courses: "Introduction to Systems Medicine" or "Environmental Systems, Research, and Stewardship." From there, you will be invited to participate in other courses including the final virtual micro-course of the series, "Learning in Motion: Taking Action in Your Community." These workshops will be held several times throughout the summer. The invitation to these workshops will come to the email address you share with us in your application materials. After you attend a 2-hour workshop, you will be invited to join an interactive Slack channel. This will allow you to stay connected with other ambassadors, and to our team so you can hear about upcoming opportunities to advance your systems thinking in STEM. These opportunities will be a combination of virtual and in-person offerings that you can participate in according to your interest and availability. As a STiSA participant, you will also be eligible to join one of our LEADS Cohorts. This is a free program. See this page for more info on STiSA and this page for more info on LEADS.

2) 8-Week Summer Internship for Rising Seniors

Current 11th graders only are eligible for ISB's 8-week (~300 hours) in-person summer internship. This summer's possible internship topics include but are not limited to: computational biology (which can include scenarios in health and/or the environment), cancer, microbiology (which includes microbial interactions, antimicrobial resistance, resilience and collapse of complex systems), engineering laboratory systems, technology development, the microbiome, infectious disease, immune system diversity, and aging and fragility. All projects are aligned with a current ISB project which is driven by a mentor. Students will learn about systems biology and apply their learning to a research project. Depending on the project, students will also learn and/or deepen their understanding of scientific, engineering, math, coding, leadership and other professional and computer-based skills. All projects also include: a) interviewing ISB professionals to learn about various career paths, b) building a website that describes the internship project and experience, and c) helping out with school-based curriculum development if pertinent. We will host 4-10 temporary High School Interns in the Baliga Lab and/or in other ISB Labs. The internship will begin on June 29 and end on August 21, 2026 (excluding July 4). The Interns will be at ISB up to 40 hours per week. Unpaid service learning and paid positions are available.

3) 6-Week, Virtual or In-Person DREAM-High Collaborative Summer Experience for Rising Seniors

Current 11th graders only are eligible to apply for DREAM-High (~32 hours over 6 weeks). DREAM-High is a partnership program brought to you by Columbia University, ISB and Stanford University. Through hands-on programming in R and Python, you will learn to visualize and analyze genomics, clinical, and physical data from cancer cells. You will apply that learning to related challenge projects. Students will also collaborate with others across the nation and showcase their skills online. See this page for more details. We will host 12 DREAM-High Scholars to join ISB's summer cohort which will tentatively begin the second week of July and extend through to the third week of August. DREAM-High Scholars join flexibly arranged online sessions once per week for 3-4 hours with other DREAM-High scholars. These sessions are led by active cancer systems biology researchers from all partner institutes. This is a free program with $500 stipends available on an as-needed basis.

4) Full Academic Year Internship for Students During their Senior Year

Current 11th graders only are eligible to apply for an Academic Year Internship (~10 or more hours per week during your senior year). Many local schools have programs that provide students release time during their senior year to complete an internship. If you are one of these students, now is the time to apply rather than during the summer before 12th grade. ISB generally hosts between 2 and 6 high school seniors to intern. The internship runs very similar to the 8-week summer program, but is flexibly scheduled according to the intern and mentor's time. In all cases, participation is during business hours between Monday and Friday, from 9am to 5pm. The research topics available are the same as those available in the summer, so please see the summer description for more information.

For more information on these positions please see these pages and the connected links found within the pages:

https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/high-school-intern-program/

https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/stis-ambassador-program/

https://dream-high.org/

Please follow these instructions to prepare and complete a competitive application:

• Reach out to your school's registrar to obtain your complete unofficial transcript. You may also be able to request or download this from your school's web resources. Make sure this is for all of your high school years, not just the most recent semester or quarter term. If you do not have high grades, that is okay. In that case, you might want to address why this is the case in your cover letter. You will be prompted to upload your transcript into the Google form.
• Request a letter of recommendation from an adult teacher, coach, supervisor, or other mentor. Give them plenty of advance notice for this. Have your recommender directly email their letter to Systems Education Experiences (SEE) at see@isbscience.org. Or they can mail a hard copy to Human Resources, High School Internship Application, 401 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109.
  
  
  
  • If your recommender is over capacity and does not have time to submit a letter of recommendation on your behalf, they can instead email our team (again at see@isbscience.org) to set up a 15-minute video call to talk to a SEE staff member to share their verbal recommendation. This is not ideal for YOU though. Having a recommender prepare a letter for you now will help you as you plan to apply for college in the future. Also, having the letter received by our staff will allow you to have a complete application sooner and therefore be eligible for Systems Thinkers in STEM Ambassadorship. Please verify with your recommender that they have completed this step and include their name and email address in the Google form when prompted. We will NOT email them. They need to email us as instructed above.
  
  
  
  
• Complete your resume. Tailor it to this ISB opportunity. There are many resources available online to help with this process. Have someone else review it to provide feedback before you submit your final version. You will be prompted in the Google form to upload this file.
• Spend time preparing your cover letter. In your cover letter, please address the prompts below. You can use any order you'd like to answer the prompts. We will use this information as our first way of getting to know you and hopefully to match you with mentors and peers either during this application cycle and/or a future cycle. All information shared will be kept confidential. You will be prompted in the Google form to upload your cover letter.
  
  
  
  • Here are the question prompts to address in your cover letter:
    
    
    
    • Please describe 1) your career goals, 2) why you are interested in scientific research, 3) what interests you most about ISB's scientific projects AND our curriculum development efforts, and 4) why you are hoping to intern at or with ISB specifically. You will need to do background research on ISB and ISB's educational programs in order to address this prompt. Please carefully review ISB's main page, our Research Areas and individual pages for Faculty, Principal Scientists and/or Senior Research Scientists to learn more about ISB's research.
    • Please also list any specific educational benefit you are hoping to receive and/or requirements of your educational organization (for example: complete a paper, work 60 hours on a specific project, complete an assignment). Please
      describe what specifically is most interesting for you within this summer's opportunities and/or topics. There is a list of potential topics on https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/high-school-intern-program/ and in the Google Application Form.
    • The last prompt (below) is an optional question/prompt - you are not required to answer. We simply want to understand your narrative and learn more about you. We value this information if you choose to share it and will keep it confidential. We seek to provide opportunities for students who do not generally have a chance to do real science. We also want to ensure that you have every opportunity to succeed. Therefore this information will help us design internship teams and activities that enable success for all.
      
      
      
      • Feel free to describe your background so we can learn more about you as a person. For instance, do you have a diagnosed disability or are there some accommodations that we could provide that would help you achieve optimal success in this program? What is the highest level of education attained by a parent or guardian? What is the highest level of education you hope to attain? If you would like to share your demographics or information pertinent to your application that was not covered in another question, please do so within your cover letter.
      
      
      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

In summary, in order to submit a complete application, you will need to:

• Complete the Google Form application. As part of this form, you need to:
  
  
  
  • answer all of the questions and submit three separate files.
    
    
    
    • your cover letter that addresses the prompts
    • your resume, tailored to this internship
    • your complete, high school transcript (unofficial, non-stamped is fine)
    
    
    
    
  • Acceptable file formats for uploads are PDF, PNG, JPG, DOCX and Google Docs.
  • You should be able to log in multiple times prior to the deadline to update your application. Only your final, complete application will be reviewed. Access to this application will turn off at 4:00pm Pacific Time on Wednesday, March 11, 2026.
  
  
  
  
• In addition to the Google Form, you also need to complete the ISB Careers page High School Internship Application by finding the post listed as "High School Intern / Ambassador". Read through the instructions and find the "Apply for this Job" button at the bottom. Click that, log in to the system, and complete the necessary fields.
• Have your recommender directly email a letter of recommendation to Systems Education Experiences (SEE) at see@isbscience.org. Or they can mail it to Human Resources, High School Internship Application, 401 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109.

Online applications are strongly encouraged. However, if you are unable to complete the online application process, please email our team at see@isbscience.org for a paper application. You will then be able to submit all hard copy documents to: Human Resources, High School Internship Application, Institute for Systems Biology, 401 Terry Avenue N, Seattle, WA 98109.

If you have questions please review the content in these pages first before contacting our team:

• https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/high-school-intern-program/
• https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/stis-ambassador-program/
• https://see.isbscience.org/resources/for-students/faq/
• Any questions you have after reviewing these pages and their extended links can be directed to the Systems Education Experiences team via email at see@isbscience.org, or to Claudia at 206-732-1453.