The application deadline for all students for Summer 2013 was Sunday, February 10, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. ET. We are no longer accepting applications for Summer 2013 internships.
Each
summer the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard
University swings open the doors of our vibrant yellow house to welcome a
group of talented and curious students as full-time interns - Berkterns!
- who are passionate about the promise of the Internet. Finding
connected and complementary research inquiries among their diverse
backgrounds, students represent all levels of study, are being trained
in disciplines across the board, and come from universities all over the
world to tackle issues related to the core of Berkman’s research
agenda, including law, technology, innovation, and knowledge; the
relationships between Internet and civic activity; and the intersection
of technology, learning, and development. Summer
interns jump head first into the swirl of the Berkman universe, where
they are deeply and substantively involved in our research projects and
efforts.
Becoming invaluable contributors to the Center’s operation and success, interns conduct collaborative and independent research under the guidance of Berkman staff, fellows, and faculty. Specific roles, tasks, and experiences vary depending on Center needs and interns' skills; a select list of expected opportunities for Summer 2013 is below. Typically, the workload of each intern is primarily based under one project or suite of projects, with encouragement and flexibility to get involved in additional projects across the Center.
In
addition to joining research teams, summer interns participate in
special lectures with Berkman Center faculty and fellows, engage each
other through community experiences like weekly interns discussion
hours, and attend Center-wide events and gatherings with members of the
wider Berkman community. As well, each year interns establish new
channels for fun and learning, such as organizing topical debates;
establishing reading groups and book clubs; producing podcasts and
videos; and hosting potlucks, cook-offs, and BBQs (fortunately for us,
people share).
The
word "awesome" has been thrown around to describe our internships, but
don't take our word for it. Interns Royze Adolfo and Hilda Barasa
documented the summer 2012 internship experience here. Former intern Zack McCune had this to say:
"it has been an enchanting summer working at the berkman center for
internet & society. everyday, i get to hang out with some of the
most brilliant people on the planet. we talk, we write (emails), we
blog, we laugh, we play rock band. and when things need to get done, we
stay late hyped on free coffee and leftover food. it is a distinct honor
to be considered a peer among such excellent people. and i am not just
talking about the fellows, staff, and faculty, though they are all
outstanding. no, i mean my peers as in my fellow interns, who are almost
definitely the ripening next generation of changemakers."
Summer
internships are full time positions (35 hours/week) for 10 weeks. Our
Summer 2013 program runs from Monday, June 3 through Friday, August 9.
Interns
are paid $11.50 an hour, with the exception of certain opportunities
for law students who receive summer public interest funds (more about
these specific cases at the link for law students below).
Please
be forewarned that payment may not be sufficient to cover living
expenses in the Boston area. No other benefits are provided, and interns
must make their own housing, insurance, and transportation
arrangements.
The
work and well-being of the Berkman Center are strengthened profoundly
by the diversity of our network and our differences in background,
culture, experience, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and
much more. We actively seek and welcome applications from people of
color, women, the LGBTQIA community, and persons with disabilities, as
well as applications from researchers and practitioners from across the
spectrum of disciplines and methods. The roots of this deep commitment
are many and, appropriately, diverse. We are not nearly far enough along
in this regard, and we may never be. It is a constant process in which
there remains much to learn. We welcome your inquiries, comments and
ideas on how we may continue to improve.
Chilling Effects
Summer interns working for Chilling Effects
will work on a range of assignments related to Chilling Effects' recent
expansion and modernization, including: writing "weather reports" and
updating news and research resources for on-site publication; helping
with managing and curating the database, including coding metadata and
working with source partners to facilitate the ingestion and processing
of notices; working on domestic and international collaboration
initiatives; event planning and management; and working on research and
writing projects centered on the database corpus, either internally or
in collaboration with external researchers. More information about
Chilling Effects and its work can be found at: http://www.chillingeffects.org/
Civic Engagement in Developing and Transitioning Countries
Interns
will undertake a variety of research and writing around the use,
impact, and design of digital tools for civic engagement in developing
and transitioning countries, with a focus on Nigeria. Inquiries will be
broad-based, but particular attention will be given to the study of
transparency, governance, accountability, justice, and human rights. As
well, research will explore issues related to civil society and
innovation.
Cyberlaw Clinic
Interns
with the Cyberlaw Clinic contribute to a wide range of real-world
litigation, client counseling, transactional, licensing, advocacy, and
legislative projects relating to technology and the Internet. The
Clinic provides high-quality, pro-bono legal services to appropriate
individuals, small start-ups, non-profit organizations, and government
entities. The Clinic’s work includes counseling and legal guidance
regarding complex open access, digital copyright, and fair use issues;
litigation, amicus filings, and other advocacy to protect online speech
and anonymity; developing legal resources for and offering advice to
citizen journalists and new media organizations; licensing and contract
advice, especially regarding Creative Commons and other “open” licenses;
advising on innovative uses of technology to help courts increase
citizens’ access to justice; and drafting amicus briefs, motions, and
training materials in the areas of child pornography and youth online
safety; among other areas. Interns in the Cyberlaw Clinic can expect
direct hands-on experience working with clients under the supervision of
the Clinic's staff attorneys. More information about the Cyberlaw
Clinic can be found at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/teaching/cyberlawclinic.
Digital Libraries
Summer
interns working on digital library issues will conduct research related
to library users, content, governance, funding, publishing models, and a
suite of related issues; stay abreast of developments in the digital
library field (including news related to e-publishing, copyright, linked
open data, and other areas); and conduct research on the legal aspects
and considerations related to these issues. Depending on summer needs,
interns may contribute to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA),
an all-digital effort to enable broad, free public access to the vast
amounts of digital content (and yet-to-be-digitized content) in the
United States' libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage
institutions. More information about the DPLA can be found at: http://dp.la.
This
position might also involve assisting with a number of research,
writing, and media tracking responsibilities for the Libraries and Data
track of the Berkman Center's nascent Information Quality Research Initiative (IQRI) Led by Berkman Executive Director Urs Gasser, the IQRI builds upon numerous publications, including the 2012 report, "Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality",
and aims to develop a theory of information quality that reflects
fundamental shifts in the information ecosystem in the age of digital
media. The Libraries and Data track is expected to be one of the initial
substantive areas that the IQRI will explore. In summer 2013, this
internship will afford the opportunity to work closely with a small yet
dynamic project team to investigate and assess empirical, theoretical
and normative dynamics, opportunities, interventions, and challenges
that emerge for both information custodians and users of information
resources in the contemporary online environment.
Digital Media Law Project
Summer
interns at the Digital Media Law Project will work on a wide range of
legal research and writing projects relating to media law, intellectual
property, and the intersection of journalism and the internet. In past
years, interns have updated the Legal Guide to media law topics, developed entries for the database of threats against online publishers, commented on current issues in law and media on the blog, and provided research and drafting assistance on amicus briefs. Interns may also be asked to assist with the operation and expansion of the Online Media Legal Network,
an attorney referral service for digital publishers, and with other
projects that the DMLP undertakes in conjunction with its partner
organizations around the world. More information on summer internships
with the DMLP can be found on the DMLP website at: http://www.citmedialaw.org/about/summer-internships.
Freedom Of Expression
The
Berkman Center's suite of freedom of expression-related projects,
including Internet Monitor, Herdict, the OpenNet Initiative, and others,
is seeking a small team of interns to conduct research on Internet
filtering, monitoring, and control efforts around the globe; engage in
related data gathering efforts using online sources; contribute to
report writing; blog regularly about issues concerning online freedom of
expression; and manage various projects' Twitter and Facebook accounts.
In the past, interns have also supported research on blogospheres and
other online communities around the world, contributed to literature
reviews, and hand coded online content. Foreign language skills,
particularly in Persian, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese, are useful. More
information about some of Berkman’s work on freedom of expression can
be found at the following links: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/internetmonitor ; http://www.herdict.org/web/ ; http://opennet.net/.
Geek Cave Software Development
The
Berkman Geek Cave is a great place to work on technical projects over
the summer. Interns joining the Geek Cave may extend open source
software, build scalable websites, or manage the mixed desktop network
that keeps the Center moving. Our team works with ruby, perl, php, bash,
jQuery, PostgreSQL, MySQL and a slew of other tools. We have five
talented, devoted, fun, full-time developers on staff that can help hone
your 1337 coding skilz as well provide fun projects to pair code or
geek out on. More info about the projects that we work on can be found
on our github organization page: http://github.com/berkmancenter.
H2O
H2O
is an online suite of classroom tools developed by the Berkman Center
and the Harvard Law School Library. H2O allows, among other things,
professors to build, share, and remix digital casebooks under a Creative
Commons license. Summer interns typically contribute to the manifold
aspects of conceptualizing, assembling, editing, and disseminating
digital casebooks for use at Harvard Law School and beyond. The platform
was successfully beta-tested in Prof. Jonathan Zittrain’s Fall 2011
Torts class, and is slated to be used by four additional Harvard Law
School professors during the 2012-13 academic year. Casebooks that might
be developed on H2O during the summer of 2013 could include Civil
Procedure, Property, Constitutional Law, Legislation and Regulations,
Corporations, and International, Foreign, and Comparative Law.
Technically proficient law students who have an interest in deepening
their knowledge in these subjects, as well as extremely dedicated
aspiring law students, will work closely with teachers and the H2O team
to deliver freely and publicly available, remixable casebooks at Harvard
and elsewhere. More information is available at: http://h2odev.law.harvard.edu and at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/h2o.
Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP)
HOAP fosters open access
(OA) to research within Harvard, fosters OA beyond Harvard, undertakes
research and policy analysis on OA, and provides OA to timely and
accurate information about OA itself. Interns with the HOAP will add
relevant information to the Open Access Directory (OAD), a wiki-based
encyclopedia of OA, and/or contribute to the the Open Access Tracking
Project (OATP), a social-tagging project organizing knowledge about OA.
More information about HOAP can be found at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page and at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/hoap.
Internet Robustness
Interns
will contribute to the research, development and testing of technical
and social approaches to improve the resiliency and robustness of the
Web. Project-related roles and responsibilities will vary according the
skills and experiences of the interns. There is need for interns with
technical skills and background as well as those with interest in
research and writing related to the social architecture of the Web.
More information about Internet Robustness is at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/internetrobustness.
Media Cloud - Research and Technical Development
Media Cloud, a joint project of the Berkman Center and the MIT Center for Civic Media,
seeks summer interns to contribute to our team’s effort to build new
tools and methods that allow us to study and better analyze the shape
and dynamics of the networked public sphere.
Research
interns with Media Cloud will contribute to the research, data
collection, and synthesis of case studies developed as part of the
Controversy Mapping tool, which allows researchers to use the Media
Cloud platform’s data collection and network visualization tools to map
the evolution of a particular public affair, debate, or policy
conversation (such as SOPA/PIPA, Trayvon Martin, and the 2012 California ballot propositions (forthcoming)).
Technical
development interns with Media Cloud will help to extend and improve
the project’s features. We are looking for developers interested in
online media research, big data, and natural language processing.
More information about Media Cloud is available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/mediacloud and you can see the project in action at: http://www.mediacloud.org.
metaLAB (at) Harvard
metaLAB
is a research and teaching unit dedicated to exploring and expanding
the frontiers of networked culture in the arts and humanities, and this
year metaLAB is developing three major projects: Teaching with Things,
an initiative to explore the use of multimedia to document, annotate,
and remix objects in Harvard's libraries and museums for teaching;
Library Observatory, a forum to visualize library collections and data
and share those analyses with librarians, faculty, and students; and
Networks and Natures, a scholarly initiative to explore the impact of
networks on our relationship with the natural world. We are looking for
interns with multimedia production experience, web design and
development, and skills in javascript, python, and other scripting
languages. More information about the metaLAB is at: http://metalab.harvard.edu/.
Berkman Multimedia Production
An
intern for the Berkman Center’s multimedia team will take on the
production of video and audio that helps to shed light on the many
research areas of the Center in a creative way. Among the
responsibilities of the multimedia intern may be: producing and editing
several episodes of Radio Berkman (the Center’s NPR-style podcast); coordinating the production of a summer intern shared multimedia projects;
and generally creating and promoting unique content for the Berkman
Center — in the form of animations, still images, slideshows, audio, and
video. This position requires previous experience with multimedia
production; a familiarity with cameras and audio equipment, as well as
video and audio production platforms (e.g., Final Cut, Adobe After
Effects, and ProTools); an energetic flair for the creative; and a
demonstrated ability to work independently and with groups. In addition
to a resume and cover letter, applicants should share links to any
multimedia work for which they are proud to have been responsible.
Open Data/Open Government
The
Berkman Center is exploring opportunities at the nexus of efforts that
promote open government, transparency, data-sharing, and civic
entrepreneurship/co-production/engagement. Recent activities at the
Center have built on the excitement generated by a range of related
events and projects in the Berkman community, including a workshop on
open data, a meeting on innovation for municipal leaders, a gaming
platform for civic engagement, and collaboration with the city
government of Boston. Interns will contribute to the development of an
action-oriented research framework intended to systematically support,
add value to, and facilitate innovation and collaboration in government.
Privacy Tools for Sharing Research Data
In
fall 2012, this exciting new collaboration between the Center for
Research on Computer Science (CRCS) at the School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS),
and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, kicked off a
four-year project to develop computational and legal methods, tools, and
policies to further the tremendous value that can come from collecting,
analyzing, and sharing data while more fully protecting individual
privacy.
Faculty director and Clinical Professor Phil Malone
leads the Berkman Center’s role in this initiative, which brings the
Center’s institutional knowledge and practical experience to help tackle
the legal and policy-based issues in the larger project. The Berkman
Center is working with Berkman faculty, fellows, research assistants,
and the CRCS and IQSS project team members to distill key definitional
issues, explore new and existing legal and regulatory frameworks, and
develop legal instruments that take into account the specific needs of
researchers, research subjects, and data, while enabling reliable
mechanisms for protecting privacy, transparency, and accountability.
For
2013, law student interns will work with Professor Phil Malone and
provide research and analytical support to the project, including research and analysis on privacy law and policy and specific privacy approaches to the use of large data sets.More information about the project can be found on the Berkman Center website at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/privacy_tools and the CRCS project website at: http://privacytools.seas.harvard.edu/.
Special Projects - Jonathan Zittrain
Summer
interns will work on a variety of projects undertaken by Professor
Jonathan Zittrain, assisting in a variety of research areas (e.g. human
computing, linkrot and internet robustness, platforms, and Internet
filtering). Summer contributions include research for conferences and
presentations; brainstorming article outlines; fact-checking materials;
and reviewing original article or paper drafts. This position requires
the ability to find, absorb, critically analyze, and debate large
amounts of written and other media materials from sources including
scholarly articles, news articles and blogs, and interviews with public
policymakers. This intern position is ideally suited for students or
others who would like to get a deeper understanding of academic research
and the broader world of Internet law. As well, this position may be
extended into the 2013-2014 academic year; if you would be interested
and available to continue working from Cambridge, MA in this capacity
beyond the summer, please indicate so in your cover letter. More
information about JZ’s research can be found at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jzittrain and at: http://www.jz.org/.
The application deadline for all students for Summer 2013 was Sunday, February 10, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. ET. We are no longer accepting applications for Summer 2013 internships.
We are fortunate to receive a large number of excellent applications each year and go through a dynamic and highly selective process in which we try to find the best match for individual interns and portfolio needs, but limited slots inevitably mean passing on amazing candidates. We are steadfast, however, in our eagerness for you to work in this space and encourage you to explore other related summer opportunities, including these.
Please start with our Summer Internship Program FAQ.
Have questions not covered in the FAQ? Email Rebecca Tabasky at rtabasky@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
Last updated February 14, 2013