Twelve undergraduate students from universities and colleges around the country are participating in an annual, eight-week developmental science summer internship for rising juniors and seniors at Yale Child Study Center (YCSC). Students become involved in projects that include basic and applied science, community-based research, and clinical settings, using methods such as analyzing archived data sets, laboratory techniques, and clinical observations.
The internship is offered each year in partnership with the Department of Pediatrics. Internship placements span all areas of child health, both physical and behavioral. YCSC summer interns are paired with faculty mentors based on their research interests and career trajectories. They spend the summer working with their mentors on research projects and present their work as conference posters to faculty, staff, and students at the end of the summer.
A poster session highlighting the interns’ summer research projects will take place on Friday, July 24, 2026, from 9– 11 a.m. Past areas of focus have included the neuroscience of parenting, adolescent risk-taking, family interventions, and addiction. This research-intensive internship is co-directed by Yale faculty members Amanda Dettmer, PhD; Vince Faustino, MD; Linda Mayes, MD, and Helena Rutherford, PhD. Kathy Ayala, PhD, serves as assistant director for the internship. Linda Isakson serves as administrative assistant for the program.
This year’s interns and their respective home institutions are as follows.
- Ankitha Ganesan, University of California San Diego
- Ariel Hornek, Sewanee: University of the South
- Bryson Boone, Brown University
- Claire Zhang, Middlebury College
- Elzie Elmore, Sewanee: University of the South
- Genesis Jiminez Chavez, University of Florida
- Glory Dada, Sewanee: University of the South
- Ivy Wilson, Sewanee: University of the South
- Kien Dang, Boston University
- Mariana Damron, Sewanee: University of the South
- Sara Welch, Providence College
- Sreoshi Hossain, Sewanee: University of the South