Apply to the DSSI

The DSSI is a 12-week full-time commitment. We run two summer sessions, which in 2025 will be:

• Session 1: 12 weeks / May 18 through August 7
• Session 2: 12 weeks / June 22 through September 11

Applicants can select the session that works best for them. Modifications to these cohort dates will not be accepted (if you are a student through an external program like NASA-MSIIP, you will have predetermined cohort dates). Please be sure to confirm with your university that you will be permitted to working the entire internship (i.e., CPT hours).

Yes! The pay is very competitive with industry and is generally more than an academic internship. Additionally, interns who are hired and paid by LLNL (non-ACP students) will be reimbursed for moving expenses based on eligibility according to LLNL policy. Please refer to "What is an ACP student?" for more information on ACP students.

We select approximately 30 students each year in this competitive program.

To be considered for the DSSI program, you should have the following qualifications:

• Actively pursuing a degree in applied mathematics, computer science, computer vision, machine learning, statistics, or a similar field
• Desire to understand and explore why certain algorithms are well-suited to specific applications
• Desire to participate in individual or team efforts including the DSSI Challenge Problems
• Desire to improve skills in public presentation of scientific results by giving presentations and participating in the LLNL student poster and/or Summer Slam competition
• Eagerness to obtain an understanding of new application areas
• Effective programming skills in a high-level language such as R, Matlab, or Python
• Distributed/parallel computing and experience with C/C++; Java a plus
• Exposure through coursework to some of the following topics:
  • Statistical modeling and data analysis
  • Bayesian and frequentist statistical frameworks
  • Inverse problems, uncertainty quantification
  • Machine learning / pattern recognition
  • Computer vision
  • Multimedia signal and video recognition
  • Combinatorics and algorithms
  • Graph modeling and social network analysis
  • Modeling and simulation
  • Distributed/parallel computing and experience with C/C++; Java a plus

If you don’t feel you meet these qualifications, we encourage you to explore other internships at LLNL.

Yes, the DSSI program is open to both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals.*

*The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Section 3112, generally prohibits citizens of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea without dual US citizenship or legal permanent residence from accessing specific non-public areas of national security or nuclear weapons facilities. The restrictions of NDAA Section 3112 apply to this position. To be qualified for this position, Candidates must be eligible to access the Laboratory in compliance with Section 3112. 

The 2025 DSSI program requires students to be onsite, which means you will need to live in/near Livermore and find reliable transportation to/from work for the duration of your internship.

Visit the LLNL Students website for more information about background checks, drug screening, onboarding tasks, transportation, and housing.

The DSSI program consists of a 12-week program with 50% of your time dedicated to your mentor’s specific project and the other 50% of your time dedicated to collaborative work on a data science challenge problem, courses/seminars, staff networking, tours, and social activities. You can view past challenge problems here: Challenge Problems. At the conclusion of your internship, you will present to leadership, peers, and LLNL staff on the project you’ve worked on during the summer. 

Courses will be finalized in the spring. Previous topics include graph neural networks, deep reinforcement learning, design of experiments, uncertainty quantification, gaussian processes and transformers. You will be able to watch recordings of previous courses as well as attend new, live courses.

The DSSI program is only offered as a one-time opportunity, in order to make this opportunity available to as many students as possible. However, many DSSI alums return to LLNL as interns through the Computing Scholar Program and other LLNL internship programs.

Mentors are LLNL staff scientists who propose a research project for the DSSI program. A mentor has the responsibility to define a project that will be significant yet manageable over the course of the internship. Some of these projects are designed to lead to follow-on work for students who would like to return in subsequent years. In a typical working arrangement, a student may expect to meet with their mentor daily or a couple of times per week depending on the research plan. However, you should never hesitate to get in touch with your mentor if you have a question. Your mentor would prefer to help you solve a difficult technical problem instead of watch you struggle.

If you plan to continue your undergraduate degree after the summer program ends, apply to the undergraduate job posting.

If you plan to complete your undergraduate degree before the summer program begins, apply to the graduate job posting—even if you are not enrolled in a graduate program in the fall.

If you plan to continue your graduate degree after the summer program ends, apply to the graduate job posting.

Our mentors have until the beginning of February to select their students. If you have not been contacted for an interview by February 9, it means you have not been selected for this year’s program. Students who are selected will be contacted by a mentor and the DSSI program administrator by the end of February to begin the hiring process.

The links above to specific job postings will take you to LLNL's Careers website. From there, you will apply using the Smart Recruiters platform. If the links or Apply button aren't working, or if the submission functionality doesn't work, we recommend that you try again in another browser or on another day. If you continue to experience issues while submitting your application, please let us know at dssi [at] llnl.gov (dssi[at]llnl[dot]gov). We will pass along any tech support issues for resolution as quickly as possible.

The Academic Cooperation Program (ACP) allows LLNL to host students who are funded through an external partner organization, and to offer them the experience of working closely with LLNL staff, just as LLNL interns do. Unlike interns, ACP students are not LLNL employees but are externally sponsored by programs such as LLF, MARA, DOE OMNI, NNSA MSIIP, MSGF, NSF, JST, AMED, and many more. ACP students must be actively enrolled, and in good standing, in a degree program at an accredited college or university. Depending on eligibility, approval may be granted to students who have recently graduated within one year of the ACP internship end date. Both ACP students and LLNL interns who participate in DSSI will receive exactly the same DSSI experience.

Send your questions to dssi [at] llnl.gov (dssi[at]llnl[dot]gov). You can also visit the LLNL Students website for more information on the Lab's scholar programs.