Undergraduate Intern in AI and Survey Research, Pew Research Center Summer 2026

Organization Overview 

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research in the areas of U.S. politics and policy views; news and information; internet and technology; science and society; religion and public life; global attitudes; race and ethnicity; and U.S. social and demographic trends. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Research Center’s work is carried out by a staff of about 180.  

Position Summary: 

The summer undergraduate internship is a paid opportunity during the summer of 2026. Interns are expected to work a minimum of 30 hours/week and are paid $18.50/hour. This internship is available to undergraduate students with an interest in AI/large language models (LLMs) and how they can be used in public opinion survey research. 

The Data Labs team of data scientists, computational social scientists and DevOps engineers use computational methods to complement and expand on the Center’s existing research agenda. 

The intern will work directly with the Data Labs team on an ongoing project to evaluate how well LLMs perform at processing and extracting insights from free text or open-ended questions in the Center’s surveys. Interns will be exposed to the workflow and daily operations of an applied data science research team within the Pew Research Center, including data management, collaborative software development, version control, code review, statistical analysis, and quality control.   

Some typical tasks of our 2026 intern may include: 

Reviewing the Center’s back catalogue of surveys to find suitable open-ended questions for LLM analysis 

Adapting qualitative coding instructions written for human coders as LLM prompts 

Writing Python scripts to automate processing texts in batches with LLMs 

Evaluating the classification accuracy of candidate models 

Note that the AI and survey research intern will not have direct involvement with the Center’s public-facing substantive research, such as reporting on new survey results. Instead, this internship focuses on the methodological and computational work that supports and expands the Center’s research toolkit. Candidates who are primarily interested in analyzing and reporting on survey results should apply for openings with the U.S. Politics, Global Attitudes, Religion, Social and Demographic Trends, Internet and Technology, Science and Society, Race and Ethnicity, or News and Information teams. 

Pew Research Center is an office-based workplace, with all staff working in the Center’s Washington, D.C., office three core days weekly (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).  Staff have the flexibility to work remotely up to two days per week. A modest relocation stipend is available for candidates who need it.  

Internship dates: June 1-Aug. 14, 2026 (with alternative dates of June 15-Aug. 28, 2026 also available) 

Education/Training/Experience 

• College students who are pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Social Science or a similar field, and have completed a minimum of two years (in other words, rising juniors and seniors). 
• Interest in the application of AI and modern LLMs to public opinion, polling and social science research. 
• Experience programming in Python, especially working with enterprise LLM APIs and/or conducting data analysis 

Application Procedure 

A complete application will include the following required items: 

A cover letter highlighting your skills and training related to public opinion research. Describe why you are interested in an internship with Pew Research Center’s survey design team. In addition, please discuss your professional aspirations and how this internship would align with your career trajectory. Please be sure to highlight your experience and proficiency with programing languages.  

A resume, which should include a listing of relevant course work, and any data analysis software used. 

Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered complete. 

The deadline for applications is February 11, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. EST.   

Interviews will take place virtually in February and March, with the goal of all hiring decisions being made by the end of March 2026.