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Summer 2023 Internship Program

Summer 2023 Internship Program

Applications are due by Monday, March 27, 2023 at 5:00pm Eastern Time. Hybrid Internship program for students working from eligible states in the USA.

Berkman Klein Center interns are deeply and substantively involved in the operation of the Berkman Klein Center’s projects, programs, and other efforts. Interns become invaluable contributors to the Center’s operation and success by working collaboratively with Center and on independent initiatives under the guidance of Center staff, faculty and community members. Intern roles and projects range widely between projects based on the Center’s needs and the intern's skills, but most roles are scoped for students. Interns also participate in regular cohort-building activities.

Program details:

  • With the exception of an in-person orientation June 5-7, in-person presence is not required to join the Berkman Klein Center as a summer intern for 2023. Interns who are local to the Cambridge/Boston area are welcome to spend time in person at the Center and co-work from flexible spaces at the Center’s offices, as are interns who visit at any point throughout the summer. 
  • In order to be eligible to be hired, interns must reside in one of the following eligible states in the USA for the duration of employment, due to Harvard payroll requirements: Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state. Applicants who do not reside in one of these states may choose to relocate temporarily for the summer to meet this eligibility criterion.
  • Prospective  interns should be available to travel to Cambridge for the start of the program from June 5-7, 2023 for in-person work with their project teams and anchoring with the cohort of interns. Eligible travel, lodging, and meal expenses over three days and nights will be reimbursed.
  • Interns should be available for hybrid weekly intern hours from 2-3pm Eastern time on Wednesdays over the course of the summer (June through mid-August). Participation in weekly intern hours can be either in-person or virtual.

For summer 2023, we welcome students to apply to any of the six research assistant opportunities listed below. Applications are due by Monday, March 27, 2023 at 5:00pm Eastern. 

Information and Eligibility 

  • The hourly wage for these positions is $20.50/hour. 
  • Expected start date is on June 5, 2023, and expected end date is on or around August 18, 2023.
  • Work may be part- or full-time depending on project needs and candidate availability. 
  • Applicants must possess work authorization in the United States. We do not have the ability to provide authorization to work in the U.S. If you are an international student in the US, you must check with your host institution concerning your ability to use CPT/OPT in order to determine your eligibility. 
  • Due to pay structures and systems at Harvard, applicants must reside in and work from one of the following US states for the duration of their employment: Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state.
  • Applicants must possess readily available access to a computer and a reliable Internet connection. 
  • Applicants must be available for the following cohort-wide initiatives:
    • June 5-7 in-person program orientation in Cambridge. Eligible travel, lodging, and meal expenses over three days and nights will be reimbursed.
    • Every Wednesday from 2:00-3:00pm Eastern time for intern cohort activities (in-person or virtual participation).
  • Applicants otherwise employed or paid by Harvard are not eligible for intern roles, except in the case of active, full-time Harvard students. However, Harvard students who hold non-contingent roles at the University may not be eligible. Eligibility will be assessed at the hiring stage.

Commitment to Diversity 

The work and well-being of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society are profoundly strengthened by the diversity of our network and our differences in background, culture, experience, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, age, ability, and much more. We actively seek and welcome applications from people of color including members of Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latinx, and other communities; women; members of the LGBTQIA+ community; people with disabilities; and people at intersections of these identities, from across the spectrum of disciplines and methods. 

To Apply: 

Applications will only be accepted through the application tracker at: https://brk.mn/summer2023intern.

Required materials for all applicants include: 

  • A current resume or CV. The form will require that you upload a PDF (no other file types will be accepted). 
  • A brief cover letter describing your skills and interests. You may wish to consider the following questions: What has led you to pursue research with the Berkman Klein Center and the issues we study? What would you like to gain from working with us this summer, and what will you contribute? How might the experience influence your future efforts? You may address your cover letter generically, as a number of people may review your application materials. 
  • Applicants will be asked to select the Intern role for which they would like to be considered, and may optionally select a second Intern opportunity for consideration. Click below to expand and learn about the various opportunities. If you choose to apply to two opportunities, you will only submit one cover letter. 

If you have questions about the application process or your eligibility, please refer to the FAQ.

For further instructions on how to submit your application, please refer to the Application Tracker Instructions.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

2023 Summer Internship Opportunities

Communications

Are you passionate about communications? The BKC communications team is seeking one or more creative, highly motivated candidates to work on a range of writing, project management, and digital media tasks that help tell the Berkman Klein story to the public and target audiences. You may be asked to help with any aspect of BKC’s communications activities, including writing and editing website and social media content, liaising with project teams, promoting events, brainstorming approaches to storytelling, and developing creative ways to share and amplify research, education, programs, and other activities of the Center. The right candidate will be someone who is an outstanding and efficient writer; is sharp, flexible, and reliable; has great organizational skills to juggle multiple tasks, people, and projects; is a strong collaborator with the EQ to work well with varying personalities and work styles; understands both traditional and social media. Come join us for the summer!

Leadership Team

The Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Sue Hendrickson, is looking to hire entrepreneurial summer interns to support the Center’s engagement on a broad range of initiatives relating to the rapidly evolving relationship between the Internet, technology, and society. Ideal candidates will demonstrate intellectual curiosity, versatility, the ability to quickly develop expertise in unfamiliar subjects, excellent verbal and writing skills, and the desire to influence public policy and interdisciplinary dialogue on next-generation issues involving technology. Summer Interns will assist on a range of projects and programs in furtherance of the mission and strategic directions of the Center. Summer efforts may include assisting with research, writing, workshops and other convenings on Generative AI, data governance, trust and safety, ethical technology, digital authoritarianism, digital child safety, extremism online, and other current tech policy topics. As part of these activities, interns may have the opportunity to work with Responsible AI Fellow Rumman Chowdhury and lawyers at the Cyberlaw Clinic. Summer Interns also may assist with planning and developing programming for BKC’s 25th anniversary event in the fall. 

metaLAB

metaLAB (at) Harvard is a project of the Berkman Klein Center at the intersection of art & design, technology, and the humanities. We are a community of scholars, creatives, technologists, and educators dedicated to modeling new forms of cultural communication, critical practice, and knowledge production. We are seeking a part time (15-20 hours per week) student designer (graphic design, dataviz design, illustration, or other!) to join us on a nascent metaLAB project – part art, part science communication, and part public engagement – that seeks to understand, demystify, and visualize the various radio frequency technologies (such as wifi, cellular, bluetooth, and satellite) that provide the scaffolding for 21st century information and communication technologies. The output for this project will be multimodal and will likely include: publications, website, a public presentation, and an exhibition. The intern will work closely with metaLAB's Director of Art & Education, and will collaborate with other students and researchers in the metaLAB community. Candidates should have familiarity with internet studies, enjoy working collaboratively and iteratively – as well as independently – and be available to help out with additional metaLAB projects that may arise. **Please include a portfolio link in your cover letter, and indicate specific areas of design expertise/interest. Please indicate other skills as well that may be useful on the project, including research, writing, social media/communications, technical engineering, or web design/development.**

Privacy Tools

By leveraging advances in computer science, social science, statistics, and law, the Privacy Tools project aims to further the tremendous value that can come from collecting, analyzing, and sharing data while more fully protecting individual privacy. This effort seeks to translate the theoretical promise of new technical measures for privacy and data utility into definitions and measures of privacy and data utility, as well as practical computational, legal, and policy tools for enabling privacy-protective access to sensitive data in a variety of contexts. The Privacy Tools team at the Berkman Klein Center explores cross-disciplinary approaches to data privacy and devises new privacy frameworks, legal instruments, and policy recommendations that complement privacy-preserving technologies being developed in the project. 

To support this work, they are looking for a rising second and third-year law student to assist with conducting research and analysis on topics related to privacy law and policy. Intern tasks may include researching and writing short legal memoranda on selected topics in privacy law and policy, drafting data sharing agreements, surveying recent publications in professional journals, contributing to the development of new tools for privacy and data sharing, participating in and presenting at project meetings, and attending lectures and events with privacy experts from a wide range of disciplines.

Rebooting Social Media

The Institute for Rebooting Social Media will welcome a small, interdisciplinary cohort of undergraduate students with fresh ideas, curiosity, and creative drive to join its growing community of faculty, staff, scholars, and fellows this summer. These student interns will support the core RSM team in various projects and programs contributing to research, event support, project management, and documentation. Students will also dedicate a portion of their time to individual projects based on their unique interests, to be pitched in their applications. These individual projects may vary in stage and scope, while connected to RSM-related topics, such as (but not limited to) content governance, disinformation, online abuse, or new tech and tools. A successful project pitch will include the definition of a research problem, a proposal for how to solve the problem, and a description of how the solution will be evaluated for success or failure. A substantive curiosity about and passion for internet law, STS, computer science, tech policy, and/or related fields is required. Familiarity with research methodologies and strong technical skills might also be helpful in the execution of individual research projects. Hired interns can work part or full time, depending on project needs and candidate availability.