Research and Intership Opportunities

We know that you are not only interested in what you can learn in the classroom at Maryland, but also in what educational opportunities exist outside of the classroom, and in what you can do with your degree when you graduate.

Whether you want experience on-campus in a faculty lab or off-campus at premiere research institutions, like NIH, the College of Life Sciences has numerous opportunities to explore. In fact, as part of the College of Life Sciences' commitment to our students' professional and intellectual development, we sponsor the EXCELS (Experiential Collaboration and Education in the Life Sciences) internship program, which helps students find internships with local companies, organizations, and government research labs. Whether you want to work at NIH on the Human Genome Project or at the National Zoo studying the behavior of antelopes, the EXCELS internship program can help you reach your goals.

Academic Credit and Funding

In many cases, you can earn academic credit toward your degree by completing an internship or research experience under the supervision of a faculty mentor. In addition, each year about 60 students receive funding for their research through the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) research grant. The HHMI Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program establishes important student-mentor relationships with the very best research faculty in the College of Life Sciences. HHMI Fellows are exposed to the entire scope of the investigative process -- from formulating questions, hypotheses, and experiments in a grant-style proposal to conducting experiments, analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and presenting their work at regional, national, and international professional meetings. Upon completion of their degrees, Fellows are well prepared for careers in basic and applied biomedical research and in the health professions.