Science Writing Intern (Remote)

Remote - Science Writing Intern

8-week internship; June 24 - August 16

~30 hours per week

Unpaid (you may be eligible for funding through your career center or a grant from your institution). Some interns have arranged to receive credit from their institution or program for doing our internship; we are happy to work with the student to meet credit requirements such as mid-term and final reviews for their institution. 

Concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). TBIs are a public health epidemic and are eight times more common than breast cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and spinal cord injury combined. Most TBIs worldwide (~56 million annually) are concussions, which are more serious injuries than most people realize; 15–50% of patients have persisting symptoms for up to a year or longer. 

Concussion Alliance is a science-based concussion education and advocacy nonprofit meeting the diverse needs of concussion patients and educating providers on current research and recommendations. Our mission is to support concussion patients in their recovery with educational resources, keep providers up-to-date on new research, educate the next generation of healthcare professionals, and change the public perception of concussions to reflect the seriousness of this injury.

Your role will consist of distilling and analyzing research and developing your skills in accessible science writing to create resources for our website (ConcussionAlliance.org) and our Concussion Update newsletter. You may have the opportunity to interview a scientist or clinician, create blog posts on current research, and create state-of-the-art web resources for concussion patients. You will also learn to create social & digital media promotional content to help get the word out about your project(s). This internship will touch on neurology, neuroscience, psychology, physiology, science writing, public health, communication, education, and nonprofit development. 

The program will include an in-depth concussion curriculum, including readings, podcasts, videos, and film; the curriculum will continue throughout the program but will be weighted toward the first two weeks. The internship also includes a biweekly expert guest speaker series, where leaders in the concussion field meet with our interns via Zoom. You will be able to engage with the speakers and with concussion professionals who will mentor the student teams as they work on their projects. 

You will be part of a cohort of interns with an emphasis on community: we will use Zoom to have twice-weekly meetings, expert guest speaker presentations, discussion groups, and social hours. We will also likely bring in Concussion Alliance community members to engage with the cohort. While the cohort is remote, we plan at least one synchronous activity per day and encourage science writers to collaborate synchronously with their projects. 

Our organization is remote; you can expect to work ~30 hours per week, although the first and last two weeks of the program will likely require a larger time commitment. The program's synchronous hours are 10-2 PST | 12-4 CST | 1-5 EST Monday-Friday. We are not able to accept applicants who will have other commitments that will consistently make them unavailable during the program's synchronous hours. Further, while we estimate 30 hours per week average and only 20 hours per week are synchronous, most interns find that this program is a full-time commitment for this period of their summer. 

To learn more, read About Us and the page about our Internship Program. Contact Conor Gormally (cg@concussionalliance.org) with any questions.