Our 2025 program dates will be posted in November. Check back for updates and application information!
Overview
OpenDP interns may be undergraduate, post-bacc, or graduate students. We prefer that students join full time and in person for our full 10-week program, but there are also options for part-time, remote, and/or term-time work. There are a limited number of paid internship positions, so students who can apply for their own summer research funding are encouraged to do so and indicate it in their application. If you are an undergraduate student, please check your eligibility to apply for funding through Harvard’s REU program.
The following are examples of past internship projects, and qualifications we look for in applicants:
- Writing mathematical proofs of the privacy properties of the OpenDP library
- Experience with rigorous mathematics and programming required; experience with differential privacy preferred
- Prototyping or implementing differentially private algorithms or data transformations to add to the OpenDP library
- Skills for programming in Python or Rust required; experience with differential privacy preferred
- Implementing and experimenting with timing attacks on differentially private systems, and potentially implementing defenses in OpenDP
- Systems programming skills required; experience with differential privacy preferred
- Working with an OpenDP use-case partner on how to apply the OpenDP software to their data
- Experience with applied statistics required; experience with differential privacy and relevant application domain preferred
- Producing documentation, tutorials, and other OpenDP communication materials
- Technical writing skills required; experience with differential privacy preferred
- Implementing and testing visualizations of differentially private statistics and the uncertainty associated with them
- Experience with applied statistics required; experience with differential privacy and designing user interfaces preferred
- Developing and running contests or other activities with the OpenDP Community
- Marketing and communication activities supporting OpenDP Community initiatives that can include general communication strategies, video production/editing, social media and website management, and content writing
Applicants will also be considered for internships in the broader Privacy Tools Project. Some past OpenDP internships have led to published research papers or senior theses; interns who are interested in a research-oriented internships should indicate that on their application, and we will try to develop a project with a research component.