For summer 2023, the SMC has two internships available! They are briefly described here, but be sure to click through the each post to learn much more, as well as instructions on how to apply.
Microsoft Research New England is looking for advanced Ph.D. students interested in bringing sociotechnical perspectives to analyze critical issues of our time. Interns will join a group of social scientists using empirical and critical methods to study the social, political, and cultural dynamics that shape technologies and their consequences. Our work draws on and spans several disciplines such as anthropology, communication, gender and sexuality studies, history, information studies, law, media studies, organizational and management sciences, science & technology studies, and sociology. Applications are due December 2, 2022. More info
Together with Viva + Yammer and Glint, we are looking for an advanced PhD student for a 12-week paid internship bridging these applied research teams and our Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group of social scientists using empirical and critical methods to study sociotechnical dynamics. This intern will work with a Microsoft Research mentor and the Yammer Research Team to conduct a qualitative participant-observation and interview research project to understand how providing enterprise users a platform to connect with leaders in their organization influences their sense of connection and belonging within the organization. They may also collect and analyze participant self-report survey data to quantitatively capture sentiment about connection and belonging at work. This research will shape how millions of enterprise employees using M365 have richer, more meaningful interactions within the workplace through explorations of how employees and leaders engage using Viva + Yammer. Applications are due January 9, 2023. More info
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal records, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.
Benefits/perks may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
PREVIOUS INTERN TESTIMONIALS
“Most productive summer of my graduate school experience. The SMC internship was all that I expected and then some. To be able to collaborate with a leader in my discipline, receive hands-on mentorship in pursuing a new project and to be given the space think things through among others brimming with a diversity of expertise was invaluable. The office in Cambridge is really an intellectual candy store. Having so many informal (and formal) conversations about my current and future work has given me a better ability to articulate my identity as a scholar as well as the spark to fine-tune my research agenda. Besides having the opportunity to network with so many well-established scholars, I’ve now developed a diverse peer network that I am sure will be helpful to my professional development in the future. Besides that, this is a group that actually has fun doing the work that they do. There was a magnetic energy that flowed through the office throughout the summer. I left really inspired and renewed to write my dissertation.” — Jabari Evans, Communication, Northwestern University
“My time at the SMC was unlike any other I’ve had academically or professionally. Intellectually rigorous yet remarkably collaborative, warm, and fun-loving, the SMC pushed me to do my best work while supporting me to experiment with new ways of conducting, conceptualizing, and communicating my research.” — Anna Banchik, Sociology, UT Austin
“The summer I spent interning at the SMC was one of the most productive and fulfilling in my graduate career. I was closely mentored, supported, and pushed by the SMC researchers, postdocs, research assistants, and my fellow interns. The SMC creates a community where you can sit down for a deep chat on methods, hold a writing group, meet with a nationally renowned scholar, and do your fieldwork all in the same day (or spend your day reading and puzzling over an idea if that’s more your speed). The MSRNE lab gives you the chance to learn alongside with scholars from a huge range of fields. If you’re looking for a place to drill down on your work with smart and caring people, the SMC internship is for you.” — Nina Medvedeva, Gender Women and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota
“My summer at MSR was among the most stimulating and productive 12 weeks I’ve had while in grad school. The SMC team as a whole provided such a great environment to embark on a completely new research project and truly push myself to try new things, while still offering a lot of guidance and support to think through some puzzles I was working through in my dissertation and offer professional advice. Belonging to a cohort of other graduate students interns at similar stages to my own also provided a remarkable community of support and advice that pushed me to get things done during the summer, which can be an otherwise quite a solitary period during the academic year. I felt welcomed and supported from day one, and very fortunate to still maintain these ties.” — Gili Vidan, History of Science, Harvard University
“My summer at Microsoft Research with the Social Media Collective was nothing short of transformative. My theoretical and methodological horizons broadened, and the relationships I forged continue to shape my development as a scholar.” — Shannon MacGregor, Communication, University of North Carolina
“It might be hard to believe that a twelve-week internship could be so integral to your professional and personal growth, but that’s exactly how I felt at that end of my time at MSRNE. I learned more about writing, critical thinking, public speaking, collegiality, and self-belief than I thought possible within such a short space of time, and I gained a group of forever friends and mentors in the process. The internship also provides you with a rare opportunity to work in a truly interdisciplinary environment and allows you to take your research proposal in a direction you might not have planned for. MSRNE was, and will continue to be, the perfect intellectual home for me.” — Ysabel Gerrard, Digital Media and Society, University of Sheffield, UK
“The internship at Microsoft Research was all of the things I wanted it to be – personally productive, intellectually rich, quiet enough to focus, noisy enough to avoid complete hermit-like cave dwelling behavior, and full of opportunities to begin ongoing professional relationships with other scholars who I might not have run into elsewhere.” — Laura Noren, Center for Data Science, New York University
“If I could design my own graduate school experience, it would feel a lot like my summer at Microsoft Research. I had the chance to undertake a project that I’d wanted to do for a long time, surrounded by really supportive and engaging thinkers who could provide guidance on things to read and concepts to consider, but who could also provoke interesting questions on the ethics of ethnographic work or the complexities of building an identity as a social sciences researcher. Overall, it was a terrific experience for me as a researcher as well as a thinker.” — Jessica Lingel, Communication, University of Pennsylvania
“My internship experience at MSRNE was eye-opening, mind-expanding and happy-making. If you are looking to level up as a scholar – reach new depth in your focus area, while broadening your scope in directions you would never dream up on your own; and you’d like to do that with the brightest, most inspiring and supportive group of scholars and humans – then you definitely want to apply.” — Kat Tiidenberg, Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark
“The Social Media Collective was instrumental throughout the process in giving me timely, sharp, and helpful feedback for my research project. These conversations further inspired new thinking that has shaped for my overall research agenda. I also felt supported by the process at Microsoft Research, to take on what may seem intimidating, especially for social science and humanities students: tackling a research project in 12 short weeks. Socially, the Social Media Collective and other interns at Microsoft Research New England were all amazingly nice and fun people, with whom I made great memories. Overall, the internship was an invaluable experience for my intellectual and professional development.”— Penny Trieu, Information, University of Michigan
“The Microsoft Internship is a life-changing experience. The program offers structure and space for emerging scholars to find their own voice while also engaging in interdisciplinary conversations. For social scientists especially the exposure to various forms of thinking, measuring, and problem-solving is unparalleled. I continue to call on the relationships I made at MSRE and always make space to talk to a former or current intern. Those kinds of relationships have a long tail.” — Tressie McMillan Cottom, Sociology, University of North Carolina
“Coming right after the exhausting, enriching ordeal of general/qualifying exams, it was exactly what I needed to step back, plunge my hands into a research project, and set the stage for my dissertation… PhD interns are given substantial intellectual freedom to pursue the questions they care about. As a consequence, the onus is mostly on the intern to develop their research project, justify it to their mentors, and do the work. While my mentors asked me good, supportive, and often helpfully hard, critical questions, but my relationship with them was not the relationship of an RA to a PI– instead it was the relationship of a junior colleague to senior ones.” — J. Nathan Matias, Psychology, Princeton University (read more here)
Social Media Collective 