Students and Internships

Each summer, we invite about two dozen exceptional mathematics students to collaborate with each other and with NSA mathematicians on problems critical to the intelligence gathering and information assurance missions of the agency. You will work on a wide range of problems and apply abstract algebra, geometry, number theory, analysis, probability, statistics, combinatorics, graph theory, algorithms and computer science skills. You will use mathematical theory, apply what you learn to real-time solutions and enjoy success built on hard work and innovation. You will use state-of-the-art resources, as well as a variety of computational algebra and statistics packages.

We are seeking participants who have distinguished themselves in undergraduate research or national mathematics competitions. Admission to this program is highly competitive.

You will contribute to mission-essential operations by transforming collected data into a format analysts can readily consume for intelligence purposes by analyzing signals and protocols and overcoming security measures. Each summer, we invite 12 students to learn, use and further NSA's tradecraft as they work on operational problems of national importance.

This program begins with classified briefings on modern cryptography and operational projects that you will use for research throughout the summer. Research problems may include applications of math, statistics, computer science, reverse engineering and software development. You will work with data from many sources, analyze a wide range of technologies and access cutting-edge computing resources. Your results are integrated to provide new capabilities to our organization.

In this program, exceptional mathematics and statistics graduate students work directly with mathematicians and statisticians on mission-critical problems and experience the excitement of the NSA technical community firsthand. You will work on a wide range of problems involving mathematics, statistics, data science, cryptology, and communications technology and document your work in internally published technical papers. You will access state-of-the-art computing resources and software packages such as Python, R, Sage, Magma, MATLAB and others.

SPORT offers you the opportunity to apply your academic knowledge in the stimulating professional environment of one of the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world. You will spend the summer developing innovative solutions to unique problems.

You will apply the technical skills you've learned in graduate school to challenging operational problems. You will lead the technical development of your project and communication with your agency customer, work with operations research analysts and attend weekly seminars on best methods and practices. At the end of your internship, you will present your findings directly to your project customer, fellow interns and senior leadership.

The CAE-Cyber Ops Summer Program is our premier outreach program for students enrolled in the cyber operations specialization at NSA-designated universities. You will gain knowledge of specific cyber-related topics and apply your skills to address various real-world technical challenges. You will work on a broad range of problems involving applications of computer science and engineering.

You will participate in a capstone activity focused on specific real-world technical problems. You will gain better understanding of how to conduct data analysis and will apply that learning to developing real-time solutions and experience the excitement of success built on hard work and innovation. The outstanding work you accomplish is documented in the program's year-end report.

The goals of the program:

• Introduce our country's future leaders in cyber-related fields to the agency's mission and share the excitement of working on problems of national importance.
• Provide a deep understanding of the vital role that computer science and engineering play in enabling the agency to tackle a diverse set of technical challenges.
• Encourage undergraduate and graduate computer science and engineering majors to continue cyber-related studies and careers.
• Afford participants the opportunity to provide solutions to current operational problems.

This program is our outreach effort to the very best undergraduate and graduate computer cybersecurity, computer science, engineering, mathematics, network security and information assurance students in the country. You will work with other students in teams and directly with technical professionals on mission-critical cyber-related problems.

You will work on a broad range of problems, applying computer science and engineering skills. In the first two weeks, you are broadly exposed to the NSA's cyber mission through lectures, classes and tours. Then, you choose a current mission-drive problem that you will focus on for the summer. You will present your work to senior leadership, as well as have it documented in the year-end report. You will learn and develop data analysis, network analysis and exploitation techniques, apply what you learn to come up with real-time solutions and experience the excitement of success built on hard work and innovation.

The goals of the program are to:

• Introduce our country's future leaders in cyber-related fields to the Agency's mission and share with them the excitement of working on problems of national importance.
• Provide a deep understanding of the vital role that cybersecurity, engineering, mathematics, network security and information assurance majors to continue their studies and pursue careers in the cyber-related fields.
• Provide solutions to current operational problems.

The National Security Agency's (NSA) Cybersecurity Directorate Summer Intern Program (CSDIP) is an exciting opportunity for outstanding undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in a variety of technical fields to experience and contribute to the mission of NSA. The newest of NSA's internship programs, CSDIP invites students in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Information Assurance, Computer Forensics, Systems Engineering and Network Engineering to participate in a 10-12 week program where they join the Cybersecurity Directorate (CSD) and work directly with NSA technical professionals on mission-critical cyber-related problems.

The goal of the CSDIP is to:

• Introduce our country's future cyber leaders to the CSD mission in cyber-related fields and to share with them the excitement of working on problems of national importance.
• Provide a deep understanding of the vital role that Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Information Assurance, Computer Forensics, Systems Engineering and Network Engineering plays in enabling the Cybersecurity Directorate to tackle a diverse set of technical challenges,
• Encourage bright undergraduate, graduate and doctorate students in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Information Assurance, Computer Forensics, Systems Engineering and Network Engineering majors to leverage their studies and pursue careers in the cyber-related fields,
• Provide solutions to current cyber related operational problems.

The students participating in the program work on a broad range of cybersecurity problems involving applications of computer science, cybersecurity and engineering. The students are presented with a set of current mission-driven problems which they will focus on for the summer. Students learn and develop data analysis and cybersecurity skills, apply what they learn to obtain real-time solutions, and experience the excitement of success built on hard work and innovation within NSA's Cybersecurity Directorate.

Your knowledge is applied to real-world, mission-related technical projects. Participants in the program will work on a broad range of problems involving computer science and engineering. As an added bonus, this position is in Hawaii, so you will spend the summer in a tropical paradise unlike anything you can find stateside.

As a participant in the program:

• You will learn about NSA's unique mission and will be exposed to the broad scope of cyber studies and careers.
• You will gain a deep understanding of the vital role that cyber operations play in enabling NSA to work a diverse set of technical challenges.
• You will work on a classified project that will support a real mission.

Along with valuable work experience, you will gain substantial exposure to our mission operations through supporting functions and tours of various sites. You will interact with leaders daily and receive unparalleled mentorship and professional development. The internship will culminate in a final presentation to senior leadership, describing your project impact and summer experience at the NSA. By the end of the program, you will understand the infrastructure backbone of an intelligence agency.

Previous intern projects have included:

• Contribute to construction and renovation projects that support facility operations and maintenance through infrastructure planning, design development, standards application and project management services.
• Monitor our 24/7 operations at the Facilities Control Center with a team of control systems specialists, including experts on fire alarms, SCADA and electrical systems.
• Coordinate master plans for the new campus under construction, backed by quantifiable cost-benefit analysis.
• Troubleshoot mechanical and electrical system deficiencies through control management systems with a team of seniors engineering and optimizing functionality for successful future operations.

This program provides you with real world exposure to data center facility management and technology. You will gain hands-on experience managing a data center. Positions are available in Washington D.C.–Ft. Meade, San Antonio, Texas and outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.

You will learn about the dynamic field that governs the facilities and complex engineering frameworks that support massive parallel computing systems. DCFM involves an unprecedented integrated approach that combines power and HVAC engineering disciplines with information technology. All these branches of knowledge join together to help create a safe and secure environment where parallel computing systems and their infrastructure can operate at peak efficiency with optimal potential for future expansion. DCFM also ensures that efficient and forward-thinking practices are implemented during the design, construction, installation, and maintenance projects that occur regularly within the walls of an operating data center.

Previous intern projects have included:

• Research of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) tools, which are software-based programs to better manage most aspects of a data center.
• Creation of room layouts to optimize efficiency of a data center.
• Collect and analyze power space and cooling data for new system installations.
• Use of 6 Sigma Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool to better understand how certain factors affect the information technology environment.
• Design of a new-zero data center facility with the latest industry power and cooling infrastructure technology.

This paid internship allows you to gain hands-on experience working with researchers on innovative cybersecurity research and technology. The Research Directorate (RES) is home to a highly technical and talented workforce that performs cutting-edge research and creates breakthroughs in mathematics, computer science, engineering, cybersecurity, physics, neuroscience and linguistics that lead to creative solutions to our most challenging problems.

You will work with leading computer scientists and engineering on the nation's toughest cyber problems while enhancing your skills in assignments related to your major. You will work closely with a project mentor on a specific, mission-focused problem while learning in an exciting high-tech environment.

In this program you are assigned to projects that contribute to our mission. Projects culminate in a short presentation and technical paper. Projects are typically in the areas of:

• Big data
• Information retrieval
• Information visualization
• Computer and network security
• Machine learning/artificial Intelligence
• Human language technology/computational linguistics
• Ontology/taxonomy and graphical analysis
• Information query and question answering
• Knowledge and data representation, distillation and sharing
• Knowledge and database crawling
• Software agent planning and control
• Signal processing
• Architecture and systems

Accelerate your career in the field of information assurance in this program by experiencing hands-on technical experience. You will work on projects that enable the cyber mission through current analysis, expertise, training and tools. You will work on projects that include protecting and defending the nation's information systems networks and outmaneuvering cyber adversaries. To participate in this program, students must return to school for at least one semester following the internship.

In this program you will support NSA as a salaried intern by working on projects involving the development, production and modification of tools, software applications or hardware. You will have the opportunity to leverage your skills to support information collection strategies, implement mission initiatives with lawful compliance, manage collection tasks and understand critical mission data flows. You are mentored by experienced SIGINT professionals and will discover various career paths you could pursue in the future as full-time NSA employees. Finally, the friendships and networks SICP interns build during their tour can last a lifetime.

This program offers you the chance to gain hands-on work experience while building knowledge and skills in fundamental aspects of the NSA mission. We offer internships in multiple mission areas requiring a range of competencies like computer science, programming and engineering.

There are two positions offered for the NSA Colorado Summer Internship:

Software engineer internship positions duties:

• Analyze user/customer requirements related to software or software system design.
• Build software prototypes.
• Design, develop and debug software applications.
• Troubleshoot and debug computer code.

Target analyst internship positions duties:

• Conduct analysis of metadata.
• Conduct target analysis.
• Conduct target research.

You will gain hands-on work experience while building knowledge and skills in fundamental aspects of the NSA mission. We offer internships in multiple mission areas requiring a range of competencies like computer science, programming and engineering.

In this program, we offer internships in multiple mission areas requiring a range of competencies like computer science, programming, engineering and analysis.

You will gain hands-on work experience while building knowledge and skills in fundamental aspects of the NSA mission. Plus, this position is in Hawaii, so you will spend your summer in a tropical paradise unlike anything you can find stateside.

How would you like to spend your summer developing technological solutions that contribute to the security of our nation? Does the prospect of applying your skills to NSA/CSS mission spark your interest? You can join a team of highly skilled, motivated and passionate professions who lead the cryptologic enterprise.

You will gain hands-on work experience while building knowledge and skills in fundamental aspects of the NSA mission. Take charge of your professional development and experience a once-in-a-lifetime internship opportunity.

The National Security Agency (NSA) Laboratory for Telecommunication Science (LTS) Summer Internship Program offers paid research internship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate-level university students pursuing STEM degrees.

The 12-week program offers interns the opportunity to gain hands-on experience working with full-time NSA researchers on innovative cybersecurity research and technology. NSA/CSS Research Directorate (RES) is home to a highly technical and talented workforce that performs cutting-edge research and creates breakthroughs in cybersecurity, computer network operations (CNO), computer science, engineering, and physics that lead to creative solutions to NSA’s most challenging problems.

This internship offers introductory opportunities for collaboration with other Federal Laboratories and organizations.

Are you looking for an opportunity to use your critical language skills to aid in national security? The Summer Language Program provides hands-on language analysis experience to college undergraduate and graduate students during a 12-week paid internship. High foreign language proficiency combined with a wide array of majors and minors will be considered for this program. If eligible, participation during a second summer is encouraged but not required. At the end of your internship, a job offer may be extended for you to join NSA in a full-time position after graduation.

The Summer Language Program hires students with proficiency in Chinese, Russian, Farsi, Arabic, and various South Asian and African languages. The languages may change from year to year based on the agency's projected hiring needs.

Are you looking for an opportunity that will provide innovative professional work experiences that are meaningful to your career goals, enable you to explore the fascinating world of intelligence and give you the opportunity to serve your country? In this paid internship program, you will train in a multi-faceted cryptologic discipline and build knowledge and skills in the intelligence analysis field.

You will also build:

• Knowledge of the fundamental concept of modern digital communications and network analysis.
• Skills in advanced analytic tools and techniques.
• Knowledge of the structure and processes of the Intelligence Community through immersion in signals intelligence topics, projects and meetings.
• Skills in conducting independent and original research, document results and communicate findings to help satisfy customer requirements.
• Skills in systematically applying logic, creativity and judgement to the evaluation and use of intelligence.

Are you looking for a unique opportunity to learn about the NSA's mission while also directly contributing to civil liberties and privacy efforts? Would you like to join a team that promotes meaningful government transparency while helping NSA achieve the right balance between privacy and national security? In this program, you will see firsthand how fundamental privacy principles influence decision-making daily. We will expose you to a variety of cryptologic disciplines and civil liberties and privacy processes.

You will actively participate in or support ongoing CLPT activities like:

• Identifying and documenting existing Civil Liberties and Privacy (CLP) activities.
• Identifying and making recommendations regarding improvements to existing gaps in CLP protections and identifying topics for and providing input to external reports on activities.
• Creating written and briefing material suitable for both internal executive-level and public audiences.
• Establishing or coordinating mechanisms to ensure compliance with appropriate Department of Defense and Intelligence Community regulations and standards to ensure that protection of civil liberties and privacy is incorporated into policies and procedures.
• Managing or preparing, as appropriate, mandatory internal and external reports.

Are you looking for an opportunity that will provide innovative professional work experiences that are significant and meaningful to your career and academic goals, enable you to explore the fascinating and unique world of intelligence and give you the opportunity to serve your country? This program offers you training and experience in auditing multiple disciplines (e.g., program performance, cybersecurity and financial statements). You can be an agent for change, analyzing operations for efficiency and effectiveness and deliver results to our customers to reduce program costs and provide value to the NSA and the U.S. taxpayer.

You will join an audit team from day one with an assigned supervisor and sponsor to help you learn and acclimate. During your first few days on the team, you will participate in an overview to become familiar with various business functions at the NSA and within the Intelligence Community. You will have the opportunity to work on audits that provide meaningful recommendations for change within the agency and influence the direction of the Intelligence Community and DoD.

Your specific responsibilities are to:

• Assess and evaluate internal controls within the context of the audit objective.
• Identify and evaluate criteria to measure performance and evaluate compliance.
• Conduct interviews within the context of an audit or evaluation.
• Gather and analyze audit evidence and compare observed results to specified requirements in the criteria.
• Identify problems and develop recommendations to improve the agency's efficiency and effectiveness.
• Write work papers and reports outlining results and findings from audits and evaluations.

You will support the strategic communications organization's role of providing accurate and timely information on signals intelligence and cybersecurity mission and accomplishments to a variety of audiences using state-of-the-art messaging products.

You can intern in the following positions

• Corporate communications, messaging and public affairs: responsible for communications and major initiatives for the worldwide NSA workforce and external audiences.
• Multimedia production: videography or animation to support corporate video production.
• Graphic design: creating original artwork ranging from project graphics, cartooning, web graphic images, storyboarding and presentation graphics.
• Photography
• Museum collections management, archives or conservation.

Join the Security and Counterintelligence (S&CI) world and support ongoing mission activities in areas like personnel security investigations, adjudications, physical security and access control, anti-terrorism/force protection or counterintelligence programs. You will work directly under the guidance of veteran security professionals responsible for protecting personnel, facilities and operations worldwide. In the process, you will understand how the S&CI group supports and interacts with the larger NSA enterprise and counterpart organizations across the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense.

As an intern working in the human resources strategy and program design unit, you'll learn to apply scientific and quantitative methods to address a wide range of human capital issues. You will gain valuable applied experience by working alongside psychologists in areas like personnel assessment (i.e. research and development work to support assessments used to select applicants for mission-critical positions), organizational design and development, human capital systems design and consulting, occupational/job analysis, organizational assessments and workforce surveys and program evaluation.

You will gain practical health promotion experience within the Office of Occupational Health Environmental and Safety Services (OHESS).

We seek candidates with:

• Interpersonal relationship and team-building skills.
• Program design, implementation and evaluation.
• Organizational skills for project places and events.
• Public speaking.
• Assistance with meditation and stress reduction programs.
• Assistance with health promotion and wellness special programming.
• Partnering with clinical staff to select appropriate health education materials.
• Judgment and insight to develop updates to our wellness webpages.
• Research for cause/benefit analysis and return on investment for wellness programs.
• Research topics and craft health tips for distribution to the agency workforce.

You will gain practical experience in workplace accommodations and will gain a broad understanding of the reasonable accommodation processes and implementation. You will work alongside experienced sign language interpreters and reasonable accommodation experts.

In the reasonable accommodation part of this program, you will:

• Gain sound knowledge of the fundamental concepts of the reasonable accommodation process, from the initial request for accommodations through the implementation of the approved accommodations.
• Work directly with employees, management and resources available at NSA.
• Enhance your ADA and section 504 and 508 knowledge and compliance requirements.
• Enhance your counseling skills to aid employees and managers in the accommodation process.
• Facilitate briefings on working with persons with disabilities for various offices and staff at NSA.

In the sign language interpreter part of the program, you will:

• Gain sound knowledge of the fundamental concepts of interpreting and managing communication within highly technical and dynamic work environments.
• Work directly with employees, management and resources available at NSA.
• Enhance your understanding of NAD-RID Code of Professional Conduct and how it applies in the workplace setting.
• Develop professional/personal skills that enable a skillful navigation through the diverse interpreting needs presented by the NSA community.

You will acquire practical human resources experience while putting your intelligence and creativity to work in the Intelligence Community. We will assign you to one of these specialty areas: total compensation, human resource strategies, recruitment and staffing, benefits and employee services, human resources information systems, data analytics or global service delivery.

You will learn how to use data to deliver consultation and analysis to customers across the agency to help them gain a better understanding of their workforce. We will expose you to many parts of the agency, and you will interact with personnel at all levels. We look for teammates who want to learn how to help others to leverage workforce-based information for better decision-making and who demonstrate curiosity about information and data. Exposure to business intelligence tools (examples include Cognos, Tableau, PowerBI, Python, R, MS Excel, etc.) is beneficial but not required.

Do you want to gain professional significant and meaningful work experiences that enable you to explore the fascinating and unique world of intelligence and give you the opportunity to serve your country? You will train and gain experience within a multifaceted business organization for business majors or those interested in applying their math knowledge to financial challenges. In this paid internship, you will build knowledge and skills in a variety of disciplines within the business field and attend various operational tours so you can understand what the NSA does in defense of our nation.

You will work directly with seasoned business professionals on activities like:

• Developing negotiation positions or negotiating multimillion dollar contracts.
• Preparing the agency's annual budget.
• Acquiring products and services from industry partners.
• Providing financial support in execution of the agency's budget and for major acquisition programs.
• Analyzing financial, performance and requirements data for business decision making.

You will:

• Gain knowledge of the fundamental concepts of government planning, programming, budgeting and execution.
• Preparing and processing contractual agreements.
• Using business IT systems and tools.
• Gaining a working knowledge of the agency's acquisition processes.
• Learning fundamentals of cost and price analysis of proposals.
• Using financial principles to identify trends in data.