NCDS Data Internship

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The ability to provide data services is now a part of many job openings and new opportunities in health sciences and academic libraries. In turn, the goal of the NCDS Internship Program is to provide practical experiences to interns that include the soft and hard skills needed to enter data librarian positions, including working on a team, understanding the data lifecycle, and working with data. The National Center for Data Services (NCDS) of the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) provides internships in an effort to increase the pool of potential data librarians by introducing students to data librarianship in a health sciences context. These paid internships offer opportunities to gain practical experience while working with a mentor in a guided environment on structured, data-related projects. There are multiple projects available from our site partners. These projects involve structured activities including data cleaning, structuring, analysis, or visualization, or a guided in-depth project in data curation. Each intern will be provided with training and mentoring throughout. The practical experiences developed during the internship will provide participants with skills needed to be competitive for data librarian positions.

All internships are 100% virtual.

Dates

The 10-week internship runs from June - August each year.

How to Apply

• Must be a US citizen or permanent resident.
• Must be currently enrolled in or a recent graduate (Spring 2025 or later) of an accredited LIS graduate program.
• Must complete all application materials.

Application

Applications are open from April 13 – April 30, 2026. The job description can be found at https://www.nnlm.gov/about/employment/ncds-data-internship.

To apply, please complete the application form. Applications are reviewed according to a rubric, and applicants who are accepted will be notified by May 11, 2026.

Up to 9 applicants will be selected.

Would you like to contact a coach?

A coach is a person external to the process who can assist with ideas for your letter or questions about how to format a resume. Want someone to review your materials to get their feedback? Or are you looking for any other support as your work on your application?

Contact Negeen Aghassibake, Data Visualization Librarian at University of Washington Libraries: negeena@uw.edu

Application Review and Scoring Criteria

Applicants may request to receive a copy of reviewer comments and rubric.

Scored Review Criteria

The application will be scored in the following areas:

• Describes applicant's interest in the internship and how the internship would benefit the applicant. (20 pts)
• Describes the applicant's experience working with or seeking to learn about data or providing data services. (5 pts)
• Describes and details projects the applicant may be interested in undertaking, as part of the internship. (5 pts)

After the scoring process, the applicable candidates are then selected based upon geographical distribution to align with funding and skill/project match.

Acceptance and Participation

Applicants who are accepted will be notified in late April. Onboarding procedures will follow in order to begin processing for employment. NCDS will provide an internship agreement for all selected candidates.

Expectations for Participation: Student interns will attend regular meetings and check-ins, complete all assigned trainings, and submit a final project report. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their work to conferences and journals. Each intern will have the opportunity to receive funding from NNLM to present at one conference where their proposal has been accepted.

NIH Ackowledgement and Public Access Policy

Recipients of NNLM funding are required to deposit any peer-reviewed manuscri