2026 Future Talent Program - AI/ML - Intern

Merck • Cambridge, MA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Future Talent Program features internships that last up to 12 weeks and will include one or more projects. These opportunities in our Research and Development Division can provide you with great development and a chance to see if we are the right company for your long-term goals.
The Future Talent Program within our Company's Data, AI, and Genome Sciences (DAGS) Department is offering internship opportunities that last a period of 9-12 weeks beginning in June. There are four positions in the AIML group. Candidates can apply for the opportunity to be involved in a project designed to enable students to further develop their skills and to evaluate if we are the right company for their long-term goals. We are seeking highly motivated and talented students with computational skills and experience.
Data Science (2 positions, On Site in Cambridge MA) Some potential projects could include:
• Graph-based representational learning for biological inference.
• Construction and characterization of Graph Neural Networks.
• Integration of graph representations with omics-based foundation models.
• Develop methods and techniques to enable harmonization of metadata.
• Develop and benchmark in house foundation model-based approaches for single-cell RNA-seq dataset integration.
• Develop model performance assessment and selection workflows.
• Develop capabilities for target discovery and prioritization from perturbational data.
AI/ML (2 positions, On Site in Cambridge MA) Some potential projects could include:
• Develop methods for improving the trainability and interpretability of foundation models.
• Build foundation models capable of better modeling perturbational biology.
• Develop multi-modal models to learn representations from multi-omic data.
• Explore approaches for probing trained foundation models for learned biology.
• Optimal experimental design to learn predictive models in small data regimes.

Requirements

• Candidates must be currently enrolled in a minimum of a Bachelor's degree program in Computer Sciences, Statistics, Biostatistics, Biological Engineering, Computational Biology, or a related field of study. Students enrolled in graduate programs (MS or PhD) are highly encouraged to apply.
• Candidates must be available to work full-time for 9-12 weeks in mid-2026.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Python, experience with analysis of single-cell RNA-seq datasets is beneficial.
• Demonstrated communication and interpersonal skills and ability to work well in a collaborative team environment.
• Excellent academic achievement and analytical ability.
• Experience with modern deep learning tooling including PyTorch and / or JAX and GPUs is strongly preferred.
• Experience with multi-GPU model training is nice to have.
• Experience with cloud computing, AWS, and command line terminal.
• Experience with statistical analysis of omics data is strongly preferred.
• Experience with mixed models or Bayesian models is nice to have.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Intern
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees