PhD internship program connects employers with graduate-level talent

By nature of their doctoral training, PhD students know what it’s like to work at a university. It’s often less clear what it would be like to work at a company outside of higher education.

An internship program at UW–Madison designed to give PhD students experience in the private sector helps students explore that option. At the same time, it connects employers with talented graduate students who can quickly join projects that push research, discovery, and development forward.

“Your PhD is not necessarily what you did during your PhD,” said biochemistry PhD student Uzziah Urquiza, who interned at Promega over the summer. “It’s about: how did you learn how to think? Can you problem-solve and develop novel ideas?”

Dan Lazar, senior research scientist at Promega and Urquiza’s internship mentor, said graduate student interns arrive with more technical capabilities, resourcefulness, and independence than typical interns. This means interns start contributing to the team more quickly and at a higher level.

“It’s been fun to see how Uzziah has attacked the technical challenges and the opportunity with so much enthusiasm and quickly understood the value of the work,” Lazar said. “We can spend more time thinking strategically and troubleshooting together without having to teach the basics.”

Companies increasingly hire talent based on broader skills like creative thinking, rather than specific technical knowledge.

Michael Braun, owner and editor-in-chief of Orange Hat Publishing in Milwaukee, said graduate students bring self-motivation and problem-solving skills to their work. Letícia Barbosa, a PhD student who interned at Orange Hat this summer, came in as a trusted partner in the small publisher’s work right away, Braun said.

“She has these skills that graduate students have – that inventiveness, that creativity, and then that desire and drive to work and work really hard,” Braun said.

This past summer was the first that Orange Hat Publishing offered an internship through the UW–Madison program. Braun said he wanted to offer something that would be valuable for graduate students to help them gain real-world experience.

That real-world aspect of the internship helps PhD students understand how to leverage their skills in an industry role and build toward a research career in the private sector.

Barbosa, whose PhD focuses on Portuguese culture and literature, said her internship at Orange Hat reinforced her ideas of how she can transfer the skills she’s gained in graduate school to other areas.

“It was very interesting for me to see other outlets for a humanities career besides becoming a professor and following academics,” she said. She now feels reassured that there’s something she can do with her PhD outside of working at a university.

Urquiza said it was interesting to see how science is done at scale as well as the breadth of positions for PhD-trained scientists. Their internship gave them a chance to work in situations they otherwise wouldn’t have during their PhD, practicing skills that are key in an industry research career.

“Being in that environment really brought to light all those small parts of career development that I don’t think were emphasized throughout my PhD process so far,” Urquiza said. “I really intend on being a lot more intentional about developing some of these skills that I might be not as proficient in as I want to be.”

Lazar, who was Urquiza’s mentor at Promega, said students certainly benefit from gaining experience they can put on their resume. They also gain a better understanding of the nature of working in industry, which he said benefits both the student and companies looking to hire research talent.

“What you don’t want is to hire someone for a position that’s not right for them. And if they’re not that familiar with what the work is like, because they’ve never been exposed to that type of research, you’re taking more of a chance,” Lazar said. “So, it kind of mitigates some risk for both sides.”