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How to go about getting a summer internship related to computational biology as a high school sophomore?

I am a high school sophomore in the Bay Area with class work experience in Python, R, Matlab and Java. This year, I am taking graph theory and applied statistics courses. I am further interested in applications of math to chemistry and biology.
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Mathew’s Answer

Very impressive as a high school sophomore to already have exposure to Python, R, Matlab & Java!

It may be difficult to get internship at a company being HS sophomore at this point. Potentially you could explore if among the many nearby Universities there are Departments or labs in these fields which might extend an internship or volunteer opportunity to you. This may allow you to participate or assist in some of their work and assuming it goes well, you will be a prime candidate for internship either at the same place or related companies when you are a junior or senior.

Good luck and best regards
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Jon’s Answer

Get your resume ready, and make sure to have an adult read it over. Run spellcheck! Also having a few references that will speak on your behalf is always good. Those are great skills you are referencing, definitely list those near the top; highlight any projects you did with those skills.

I would go out to LinkedIn.com and see what companies are inyour immediate area. This is a great local healthcare company that I would recommend: https://innovaccer.com/careers/

Also, you may not find the exact match for you, but at least be open to finding "a company" that can get you started with "real world experience". That will be the type of references you need to find that special company in the field you are seeking.

Good luck!
Thank you comment icon good overall recommendation Todd Everett
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Paul’s Answer

Your goal sounds very interesting. It is not hard at all to find an internship in the bay area. However, your age might be a problem for working in a lab setting bc there are age limit for safety concern. I used to place my high school seniors/juniors in my AP Capstone research to work in the labs in the medical center. They were seniors. They have you sign some forms, going through safety training etc.
How to get these positions: best to ask your teacher if he has any connections. If not, write to the lab PI (principal investigator) and comment on their research that you are interested (you can get it online) and the computational areas that you are interested in. Go to the university staff and faculty pages. Do the same for research labs (universities) in the nearby medical center. Private companies may not post their PI names online. Go to their HR and ask.
There are a lot of data analysis for DNA phylogeny, systematics, epidemiology type of routine work.
Hope you have a good postdoc to guide you.
Good luck.
Thank you comment icon great job on local reference Todd Everett
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Jack’s Answer

The genomic revolution- what a great place to be. It's made up of many subfields, so you may want to think about specializing right away.

You may have seen videos like this, but youtube is still a good place to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoTBob1_IvI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk1DjJ6pr4A

Good Luck.
Jack Ritter
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Todd’s Answer

When I was a 'director' and created internship program, I was looking for someone based on their work ethic and desire o help the company's clients.
I recommend that you start with specific companies you would like to work for in the long term and then expand to any bio or tech company just to get work experience. This is a version of the same advice I gave my son during high school to help him get experience for college and for post-college resume results.
Net-net, if you cannot find advertised positions for what you want, look at companies you want to work for, CALL THEM, and find a way to justify them using you to help them out.
While you want to present your talents and desirable capabilities as the goal, if you can work in "the mail room" for a company you respect, you can learn about them and move to apply for more meaningful positions afterwards.
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Yarek’s Answer

Ask people! If you know anyone who works in this field (computational biology), ask about what they do and which companies they might know. Also look at colleges/universities and health care agencies. They also use some computational biologists, and sometimes have internships and summer programs specifically for high school students. Most companies and schools will post them, but sometimes reaching out directly (via letter or email) to a person doing something that interests you can lead to a position.
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