USAID Higher Education Solutions Network 2017 Student Summer Intern Program

Each year the USAID Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) provides the opportunity for HESN Lab-affiliated students (including Duke University through the SEAD Program) the opportunity to bring their talents to various programs at USAID. Since the beginning of the HESN internship program, Duke University has sent 14 interns to USAID. See the 2015 cohort here. See the 2016 cohort here.

This summer, USAID has released 32 HESN internships, the largest number yet! Internships encompass a wide range of topics including global health, public policy, education, communications, and data analysis. To get a feel of for previous Duke HESN interns and their experience, check out some of their blogs about their internships:
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• Kaylan Christofferson: Interned with the Global Partnerships Team at the Global Development Lab
• Courtney Cobb: Interned with Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact
• Divya Giyanani: Interned with the Global Development Lab
• Vinesh Kapil: Interned with Saving Lives at Birth ​​

Deadline to Apply

• November 3rd 12pm: Letter of Approval request submission (see below)
• November 6th 11:55pm: Application submission. Application form here.

Background

​The Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) is a partnership between USAID’s Global Development Lab and seven world-class universities to create a constellation of Development Labs; the Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator at Duke (SEAD) is one of the HESN Labs. This network harnesses the ingenuity and passion of university students, researchers, faculty, and their innovative partners to incubate, catalyze and scale science and tech-based solutions to the world’s most challenging development problems.
 
SEAD is an interdisciplinary hub leveraging the strengths of partners around Duke, including the Innovations in Healthcare at Duke Medicine, the Center for the Advancement for Social Entrepreneurship at the Fuqua School of Business, and the Duke Global Health Institute. SEAD takes an ecosystem approach to provide innovators in global health with the knowledge, systems, and networks to succeed and to engage faculty and students in advancing the field.  SEAD identifies such innovators or “social entrepreneurs” around the world who have found potentially transformative ways to solve common challenges in global health, and helps them extend their impact to a larger scale. This support includes capacity-building, mentoring, technical assistance, and help in attracting investment and funding.  See SEAD’s website (www.dukesead.org) for more information.
 
One of the major objectives of HESN and SEAD is to engage students in solving distinct development challenges.  USAID is piloting this internship program with HESN universities to contribute to this objective, and to further catalyze a global interdisciplinary ecosystem of individuals and institutions that shares knowledge, promotes learning, and builds mutual capacity.  USAID/HESN is offering internships in a number of disciplines to attract students with a wide variety of skill sets and interests.  Through the internship program, students will also have the opportunity to interact with students from other HESN universities (www.usaid.gov/hesn), which will help to promote knowledge-sharing, and collaboration across the HESN network.  

The Internship

HESN is offering a student internship program open to graduate and undergraduate students from within the HESN university network (of which Duke is a part). These internships will take place over the summer with offices at USAID/Washington.  USAID has released 32 HESN intern position opportunities for Summer 2017, including brief descriptions of each assignment.  Each student may apply for up to three of the listed opportunities.  Students can find out more information about the particular USAID office and focal area of work (i.e. global health or education) at http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do and other pages on the USAID website.  Internship assignments should contribute to both the Lab’s work (i.e. SEAD’s work, although this need not be limited to global health) and the goals of the hosting office within USAID.
Note that the HESN Student Internship is unpaid, but SEAD is planning to provide small stipends (amount TBD) to a number of students; students may be able to seek funding from sources around campus to cover summer costs.

Eligibility

​Duke undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students are invited to apply; students who will have recently graduated are also eligible.  Interns must be U.S. citizens and able to obtain a government-issued security clearance (which USAID will facilitate).  If security clearance is not granted before the start of the internship, the intern may participate virtually. Please note that dual citizens are unlikely to obtain security clearance in time to participate in the program. 

Application Materials

1. As a single PDF (submission instructions on the online form):
   1. Cover Letter (including statement of interest and relevant experience); if applying for up to three positions, can submit one cover letter per position if desired)

Note: In general, the cover letters should focus on how and why the student is a good fit for the internship opportunity.  However, to capture the link with HESN and SEAD, the student should also briefly highlight how the specific internship would contribute to improving knowledge-sharing and promoting learning around innovative solutions to development problems back at Duke generally, and also within SEAD.  (For students applying to internships outside of global health, you can note that while SEAD is focused on global health it can benefit greatly in learning from successful practices in other sectors.)  The student should also briefly highlight (1-2 sentences) how the internship will contribute to his/her career decisions and/or goals. 

1. Resume and contact information
2. Letter of approval from SEAD

Note: To request a letter of approval, please send an email to Pat Massard (patricia.massard@duke.edu) with resume attached and two brief bullets: one listing the internship position(s) to which you intend to apply, and one with a sentence on why you are interested to participate in this internship program.  SEAD will make every effort to turn around letters of approval in one business day; letters of approval will consist of standard language and not customized to each applicant.  The last opportunity to request a letter of approval in time to submit materials by USAID’s deadline is 12pm on November 3rd.

1. On the online form:
   1. Short answers such as interests, skills, and (optionally) positions of most interest

​2017 HESN Student Intern Program Timeline

• November 6                               Deadline to submit applications (11:55pm)
• November 7-December 1            USAID host offices will directly contact and interview potential interns
• December 2 – December 9          USAID offices contact students to make 1st round offers (decline/accept by 12/9)
• December 10- December 19        USAID offices contact students to make 2nd round offers (decline/accept by 12/19)
• January 17, 2017                        Student security clearance packets due to HESN
• Summer 2017                             Students intern at USAID for 8-12 weeks

Questions?

If applicants have questions or concerns, please email Kimberly.langsam@duke.edu or hesn.internship@usaid.gov and use the subject line “HSIP LastName…”
 
To learn about other USAID internships outside of the HESN program, see: http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/careers/student-internships.  For USAID Global Health Fellows Program Internships, see http://www.ghfp.net/internships/.