Summer 2024 Internship Program

Applications are due Monday, March 25, at 5:00 PM ET. Hybrid Internship program for students working from eligible states in the USA.

The Berkman Klein Center’s Summer Internship Program gives interns the opportunity to become deeply embedded within the projects and work happening across the Center. Interns spend the summer months working side-by-side with Berkman Klein staff, fellows, and scholars to keep projects moving forward, learning along the way. Interns will make valuable contributions over the course of the summer, to a wide range of projects based on the Center’s needs and the intern’s skills.

Program Details

This program is for active undergraduate and graduate students residing within eligible states in the United States: Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington State.
This program is hybrid, though some roles may have a preference for interns who are located in the Boston area with the ability to come into the Berkman Klein Center offices periodically.
Prospective interns should be available for the duration of the program (June 3-August 16, 2024), and for periodic hybrid cohort events over the course of the summer.
For summer 2024, we welcome students to apply to any of the internship opportunities listed below. Applications are due by 5:00 PM ET on Monday, March 25.

Information and Eligibility

The hourly wage for these positions is $21/hour.
Expected start date is on June 3, 2024, and expected end date is on or around August 16, 2024.
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 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 form. For applicants who would like to preview the application questions, they can be found here.

All applicants must choose at least one and up to two of the opportunities listed below to apply to.

If you have questions about the application process or your eligibility, please refer to the FAQ. Questions not addressed in the FAQ can be directed to summerinternship@cyber.harvard.edu.

APPLY HERE

2024 Summer Internship Opportunities

Applied Social Media Lab/Rebooting Social Media Summer Internship

The Institute for Rebooting Social Media (RSM) and Applied Social Media Lab (ASML) will welcome interns with fresh ideas, curiosity, and creative drive to join its growing community of faculty, staff, and scholars this summer. These student interns will support the core RSM team in various projects and programs, contributing to research, event support, project management, communication, and documentation. Students may also dedicate a portion of their time to support the faculty-led ASML pods, thematic projects examining topics like trust and safety tooling, online forums for political deliberation, disinformation mitigation, and more. Substantive curiosity and an interest in social media, content governance, tech policy, computer science, and/or related fields is required. Familiarity with research methodologies and/or strong technical skills are also a plus. Hired interns can work part- or full-time, depending on project needs and candidate availability.

Communications Summer Internship

Are you passionate about communications? The BKC communications team is seeking one or more creative, highly motivated candidates to work on a range of digital and social media tasks that help tell the Berkman Klein story to the public and target audiences. We are looking for individuals with video production and editing skills, audio editing skills, graphic design skills and photography skills. (You do not have to have all of these skills to apply - we would prefer that you have particular expertise in one of these areas.) You may be asked to help with any aspect of BKC’s communications activities, including shooting and editing videos, taking photographs and notes at events, tracking data and analytics, and developing creative ways to share and amplify the research, education, programs, and other activities of the Center. The right candidate will be someone who is sharp, flexible, and reliable; has great organizational skills to juggle multiple tasks; is a strong collaborator with the EQ to work well with varying personalities and work styles; understands both traditional and social media. We would prefer a candidate who can work in-person as needed. Come join us! Experience with Canva, InDesign, Premiere and Audition preferred. (You don't have to have experience with all of them - significant experience with one or two is ideal.)

Educational Initiatives Summer Internship

The Education team at the Berkman Klein Center is a nexus for student engagements of all kinds, from events, to programs, to studies, we aim to support students in their inquiry of tech and society. The Educational Initiatives summer intern will support planning for the next academic year’s offerings by completing the following work at 14-25 hours per week:

Analyzing audiences served by current and proposed programming; landscape analysis of partner institutions
Drafting workflows and documentation in support of new and existing programming
Other duties as assigned

Candidates should possess a strong process mindset, a passion for education, and strong attention to detail. Experience with learning design or organizational behavior is a plus. Candidates with consulting experience are encouraged to apply.

Privacy Tools Summer Internship

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.

Professor Zittrain Projects Summer Internship

Professor Jonathan Zittrain has worked on projects related to the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence; battles for control of digital property; the regulation of cryptography; new privacy frameworks for loyalty to users of online services; the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture; and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education. In the upcoming year, he will be diving further on projects related to machine learning and artificial intelligence. The summer intern will work directly with Professor Zittrain and BKC's Senior Research Coordinator on a variety of projects across the summer. Applicants should have an interest in machine learning and/or artificial intelligence, public policy, digital and internet issues. Technical programming experience or digital law or policy experience is strongly favored. The time commitment would range between 10 – 35 hours per week, depending on project needs and candidate availability, and preference will be given to candidates who are available to spend part of their time in-person at BKC’s offices in Cambridge, MA.