Internships and Job Opportunities

Undergraduate Positions

Part-time student lab assistant positions. The Biology Department often has student lab positions in our faculty research labs. While we give preference to students with work-study funding eligibility, it is not a strict requirement. If you’ve had previous lab experience, that’s great; however, most of our beginning lab assistant jobs involve lab techniques and procedures that don’t require previous experience and for which you’ll be trained by another lab member. Much of the work supports other lab members (professors, grad students, post-docs, and other undergrad research students), and while they only require basic skills, they are tasks that are very important for the research work that goes on in our labs. Some examples of typical lab tasks include preparing reagents, maintaining animal/plant colonies or microorganism stocks, collecting and processing samples, recording data, cleaning and sterilizing lab materials, etc. They generally involve a time commitment of 5-15 hours per week.

Often students are interested in more advanced work in their lab, or another lab, in future semesters; our entry-level positions described above serve as a good foot in the door, to experience what takes place in a typical biology lab. Many part-time students go on to do research for academic credit (Bio 93/94, 193/194, senior thesis), or summer research projects in their respective labs, sometimes supported by their mentor’s grant or other summer funding.

If you are interested in such a position, please contact our Lab Services Coordinator (Michael.Grossi@tufts.edu), who maintains a list of labs currently seeking student assistants. Please include a brief description of your interests, the type of biology you are most interested in gaining experience in (i.e. molecular bio, biochemistry, microbiology, cell bio, physiology, ecology, conservation bio), or even, if you know, a specific professor’s lab you’d most like to work in, and why. Also include how many hours per week you could be available to work.

Graduate Positions

Tufts Biology accepts applications for the OCMS program year-round (with different deadlines for full-time vs part-time students) and Ph.D. program applications on an annual basis. For more information on how to apply, please visit our graduate program webpage.

For current students enrolled in our program, Ph.D. students receive full tuition support for six years, a competitive stipend, and health coverage for the duration of their program either through a research or teaching assistantship.

There are usually a few teaching assistant opportunities every year available to OCMS students currently enrolled in the program, offering financial support in the form of a teaching stipend for the semester. Additionally, multiple courses may require a grader, which is an hourly role advertised to OCMS students.

For both OCMS and Ph.D. students, there are opportunities to serve as tutors through the StAAR Center.