At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, students gain valuable research experience and exposure to career paths across many scientific, engineering, and operational fields. Some programs fulfill a student's academic requirement, while others support thesis work at specific universities or offer paid internships. Many times, a student's experience at the Laboratory can evolve into post-graduation employment.

At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, students gain valuable research experience and exposure to career paths across many scientific, engineering, and operational fields.
At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, students gain valuable research experience and exposure to career paths across many scientific, engineering, and operational fields.

Student Opportunities

Derrick Feld looks on as AFCEA intern Chi-chi Nwodoh connects wires on the test terminal she helped build.

AFCEA

Each summer, Lincoln Laboratory selects several applicants to work with industry experts who mentor the students in real hands-on work in their fields of interest.
MIT LL co-op

Cooperative Education Program

Lincoln Laboratory employs students from MIT, Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and other area colleges as full-time co-ops throughout the year.
Raoul Ouedraogo explains the premise of the Intern Innovative Idea Challenge to summer interns working at the Laboratory.

Intern Innovative Idea Challenge (I3C)

To provide summer students an opportunity to flex their technical skills beyond assigned work, Lincoln Laboratory invented the Intern Innovation Idea Challenge (I3C) to encourage interns to envision a new technique or device to solve a current problem.
MIT 6-A student Jesse Chang aligns a narrow laser beam on a quad-cell photodetector in preparation for a direct-to-Earth optical communications uplink.

MIT 6-A Master of Engineering Thesis Program

Lincoln Laboratory is an industry partner of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 6-A Master of Engineering Thesis Program. The program matches industry mentors with students in their junior year of study who have demonstrated excellent academic preparation and motivation.
Staff member David Caplan, far right, taught an IAP course in Free-Space Laser Communication, in which teams of students designed and built their own lasercom system.

MIT Independent Activities Period

During MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP), a four-week period between semesters, MIT students can sign up for activities led by Lincoln Laboratory technical staff ranging from academic seminars to hands-on engineering projects.
MIT student Vivek Miglani worked on a project that simulates weather radar images for air traffic controllers, modifying the team’s existing neural network model and running experiments to identify possible improvements.

MIT Research Assistantships

Working with Laboratory engineers and scientists, MIT graduate students contribute to sponsored programs while investigating the questions that evolve into their doctoral theses.
Student present their research to Laboratory staff at the close of their internships.

MIT Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program

Lincoln Laboratory participates in MIT's Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP).
As mentor Henry Romero looks on, UROP student Gabriela Studt does calculations to compare soft-decision decoding algorithms for Reed-Solomon error-correcting codes.

MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program

MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program cultivates research partnerships between MIT undergraduates and faculty, offering students the chance to work on cutting-edge research and participate in each phase of standard research activity.
2022 GEM fellows

National GEM Consortium Fellowships

Through collaborations with universities and businesses, the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science (GEM) provides support to students from underrepresented groups who are seeking advanced degrees in science and engineering fields.
Summer research student Alan Dong helped transition the LES-9 satellite’s original analog communication devices to digital platforms during his internship.

Summer Research Program

Each summer, the Laboratory offers undergraduate and graduate students the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a leading-edge research environment.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Technical Seminar Series

Technical Seminar Series

We offer the seminars in the following areas: air traffic control; communication systems; cyber security and information sciences; engineering; homeland protection; human language technology; radar and signal processing; solid state devices, materials, and processes; space control technology; and systems and architectures.
WPI students, with the guidance of their Lincoln Laboratory mentor (left) developed a liquid-propellant propulsion system for picosatellites for their Major Qualifying Project.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Major Qualifying Project Program

Lincoln Laboratory collaborates with Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in its Major Qualifying Project (MQP) program, which requires a student to complete an undergraduate project equivalent to a senior thesis.

On-Campus Recruiting

Lincoln Laboratory maintains an active college recruiting program through which our staff meet students with diverse backgrounds, share information about our R&D areas, and discuss future employment or internship opportunities. On average, we attend around 100 events at 25 campuses each year.