Biomedical Data Science Summer Internships: Designing effective and joyful internship programs for trainees, mentors, and organizers

Presented at Health Sciences Education & IPE Day, Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education, University of New Mexico, February 6th, 2026.

The Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) Summer Internship at UNM was organized by the Translational Informatics Division (TID) of the Department of Internal Medicine (DoIM) and held from June 2 - August 4, 2025. Five interns (four local and one remote) participated in the program and completed projects covering a wide range of topics in biomedical data science, employing a variety of data from NIH Common Fund (CF) programs and other sources.  This internship program was closely based on the Independent Study in Biomedical Informatics (BIOMED 505) course offered each semester for several years by TID, and reflected the lessons learned, particularly regarding the challenges of collaboratively designing research plans with suitable scope for a variety of learners and a variety of topics spanning the translational spectrum from basic science to clinical outcomes, and involving cutting-edge biomedical analysis methodology.