PNI's Summer Internship Program (SIP) is for highly motivated non-Princeton undergraduates who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in neuroscience or a related field. While this internship program is only open to visiting undergraduates, current Princeton undergraduates can apply for an internship in a PNI lab and are welcome to join in the programming and events of SIP.  PNI provides education and hands-on research experience for interns to collaborate closely with students and faculty at PNI on original research projects and gain invaluable first-hand experience on what it is like to be a neuroscientist.

Our program will span 9 weeks: June 3 – August 2, 2024. 

To apply to the PNI Summer Internship Program

At PNI in summer we have Princeton internal undergraduate interns as well as visiting undergraduates. The visiting students will be formally placed in our NSF-REU Summer Internship Program (SIP), but Princeton students can apply to be summer interns in PNI labs too, and they are welcome to join our SIP summer programming/events informally.

All visiting student applicants will be notified of the Selection Committee's decision by email in mid-March. Princeton students will be notified by mid-April.

Non-Princeton Undergraduates

• Princeton University is a member of the Leadership Alliance and requests applicants to apply to the Program through the Leadership Alliance-SR-EIP portal and select Princeton as one of their three site choices. The Leadership Alliance is a consortium of academic institutions that encourage diversity and work to prepare young scholars from underrepresented and underserved populations for graduate training and are not exclusionary on the basis of race, color, sex, age, religion, national and ethnic origin, disability, veteran status, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. The Leadership Alliance application portal will be open November 1, 2023 and close on February 1, 2024.
• After you have completed the Leadership Alliance application, Please fill in this simple Google form with the names of three faculty members you would like to work with if you ranked PNI on your SR-EIP application.

  Princeton Undergraduates

• Princeton Students should create an application in SAFE and search for funding opportunities there. Again Princeton students are encouraged to participate in the PNI Summer Internship program activities. To apply to be a summer intern at PNI, please complete and submit the following information through the  SAFE application portal
• The application form within the online system
• A personal statement
• Transcript(s) of all undergraduate courses and grades, including the fall semester (submitted online). Transcripts should be sent as a .pdf, .doc, .docx, .jpg, or .html file. Please do not mail a hard copy of your transcript.
• Two letters of recommendation from faculty members (submitted online by faculty recommenders - separate from the application form)

In your personal statement, please briefly describe your academic background, research interests, career goals, reasons for applying to the program, and how your participation in the program may assist in attaining your future ambitions. Please limit your statement to 750 words.

In your application form, we ask you to specify 3 or 4 PNI labs in which you would most prefer to work. You can learn more about our faculty and their research by exploring the PNI website.  A number of faculty in Psychology also accept summer interns, including Prof. Casey Lew-Williams in the Princeton Baby Lab.

The online application system will have a dedicated section for entering the contact information for your recommenders. A notice will be emailed to each referee and they will be asked to complete a short reference survey and provide a brief overview of your qualifications for our program. You do not need to submit your application for your recommenders to receive their email notices. Please contact Gabby Xu with any questions, problems, or concerns regarding this policy.

It is helpful to have your recommendation letters come from college-level advisors, professors, researchers, or professionals who can remark on your laboratory skills, academic background, problem-solving abilities, and overall scholarship. Recommendations can be written by faculty/advisors from your home institution or by professionals outside your home institution (such as an advisor from a past internship). Current college freshmen should avoid submitting recommendations from high school teachers but should feel free to mention high school achievements in their personal statement.

You can change your referee only if she/he has not submitted a recommendation yet. To do so, log in to your application, revise the referee information and click the button to update your application. An automated email with the recommendation link will then go out to the new referee asking her/him to submit a recommendation on your behalf. The original referee will also receive an email notifying her/him that the prior invitation s/he received is no longer valid. Please let your original referee know of the change before she/he receives the automated email notice.

Your application is automatically considered complete and submitted once we have received all the appropriate materials. The online application system will display check marks once you’ve submitted the required responses. You can complete your application before your recommendation letters are submitted.

You can log in to the system and check the status of your recommendations anytime. If all required sections are checked off, your application is complete.