2026 Internship Opportunities

The project will use synthetic biology approaches to evaluate the genetic accessibility of microbes within natural and synthetic communities using diverse bacterial conjugation systems to establish a toolkit for deploying genetic and metabolic circuits into environmental microbes. This will enable us to selectively engineer microbiomes to perform designer metabolic functions (e.g. polymer synthesis, biodegradation, biosensing, mineral extraction). This will also provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the spread of antimicrobial resistance in diverse ecosystems.

Student will assist a PhD student in designing plasmids for bacterial transformation, cultivation and maintenance of bacterial strains, and running assays for conjugation. The student will participate in lab meetings and present their research to the group and the HMEI community.

Basic microbiological laboratory techniques will be learned such as cell cultivation, bacterial transformation, and instrumental analysis. Synthetic biology techniques will also be learned including plasmid design, gene cloning, and strain development. A mechanistic understanding of how genetic information is spread throughout microbial ecosystems.

A basic understanding of molecular biology and microbiology are ideal. MOL 214 is ideal but not strictly required.

Prior experience with molecular cloning, plasmid design, cell culture are ideal but not strictly required.

Laptop is required

• Students will meet with internship mentors in the spring, prior to the internship start date. Reading materials may also be provided.
• Students are responsible for securing accommodations for the duration of their internship. On-campus summer housing is typically available the first week of June until the first week of August (details to become available in Spring 2026). If the internship falls outside of on-campus housing availability, students will need to secure alternate housing.