For a long time, internships were mostly associated with undergraduate education. PhD students were expected to focus on research, publish their findings, defend their dissertations, and then step into whatever came next: academia, industry, or government labs.
Gaining industry experience during doctoral studies was possible, but not always common. That is changing. Across chemical and biomolecular engineering, internships are becoming an increasingly important part of PhD training.
Internships offer students a chance to test their research skills in applied settings, build professional networks, and clarify what kind of work environment suits them best.
In many cases, they also provide financial support that can ease the pressures of graduate school, said Professor Christopher W. Jones, the John F. Brock III School Chair of the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Four ChBE PhD students and recent graduates — Alexa Dobbs, Jessica Bonsu, Linh Mai, and Gabriel Gusmão — reflect that shift. Their internships span a national laboratory, global industry leaders, and research-driven corporate environments. While their technical work differs, each describes the experience as formative — not a break from doctoral training, but an extension of it.
Alexa Dobbs
Seeing Research Through a Manufacturing Lens
For Alexa Dobbs (PhD 2025), internships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California, provided an opportunity to view her research in a broader manufacturing context.
These experiences also led to a position as a postdoctoral researcher at LLNL after earning her PhD.
Dobbs had previously spent two summers interning at LLNL and extended her time there throughout 2025, working on process analytical technology designed to detect defects during mixing processes.
As with her dissertation, her focus as an intern was on dense paste materials. These are used in additive manufacturing and are relevant to applications ranging from energetics and solid-state batteries to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Dobbs focused on monitoring mixing processes so that defects could be detected early and prevented from moving down a production line. “It was great to expand my understanding of the entire manufacturing process and learn about key challenges in the field," Dobbs said.
Dobbs first connected with lab scientists through professional conferences, including the Gordon Research Conference on Energetic Materials. Her PhD advisor, Associate Professor Blair Brettmann, also collaborates regularly with LLNL.
Benefits of these internships included higher pay than the standard graduate student stipend and a full-time position after graduation. “With internships, the pipeline to full-time employment is often very robust,” Dobbs said.
Applying AI to Real-World R&D Challenges
Before beginning her PhD studies in bioengineering at Georgia Tech in 2022, Jessica Bonsu worked for a year in biotechnology after graduating with her BS in engineering science from Smith College.
Her various research and professional experiences led to an interest in supplementing experimental research with computational tools. She had the opportunity to delve deeper into that area as a data science/generative AI intern at Dow in the summer of 2025.
Her project focused on developing a large language model to extract experimental and process data from unstructured lab reports, making information more accessible for R&D decision-making. By organizing and centralizing data that had previously been difficult to navigate, her work laid a foundation for applying machine learning tools within the department.
For Bonsu, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, one of the most striking differences between graduate school and industry was the pace and structure of collaboration. While PhD students often work independently to troubleshoot complex problems, she found that industry teams provided immediate access to mentorship and cross-functional expertise. The result was a project that moved from concept to implementation in three months.
The internship also reinforced her career goals. After graduating in Spring 2027, Bonsu plans to pursue industry roles that combine experimental research with data-driven methods. She emphasizes that internships provide more than experience — they signal readiness for the job market. “Your degree will only take you so far,” she noted. “Experience is what employers look for.”
She advises PhD students to pursue internship opportunities through LinkedIn and the careers websites of companies in their desired fields. “You can also connect with alumni to see if they have internships within their department or overall company,” said Bonsu, who credits a past student in the lab of her advisor, Professor Martha Grover, with helping her find the internship at Dow.
That graduate is Rahul Venkatesh (PhD 2024), now a senior research specialist at Dow. “It was great having a Georgia Tech alum mentor me throughout my entire internship,” Bonsu said.
Jessica Bonsu
Linh Mai
Reassessing Direction Before Graduation
For Linh Mai, a fifth-year PhD candidate, a summer 2025 internship at Merck was both a challenge and a reset.
The position pushed her into technical territory that differed from her dissertation work, which focuses on protein engineering and therapeutic development.
At Merck, she improved a system that uses immobilized enzymes to break down proteins into smaller pieces so they can be analyzed more easily using a lab technique called liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS).
“I felt like I was starting over in some ways,” said Mai, who’d grown accustomed to being a subject matter expert within the lab of her advisor, Professor Julie Champion. “It was a little humbling, feeling like the least experienced person in the room again, but also freeing and rejuvenating to get to learn so much.”
After graduating with her BS in biomedical engineering from Rutgers University in 2019, Mai worked for two years for GSK in downstream biopharmaceutical process development, where she helped develop and optimize automated systems for protein manufacturing and analytical testing.
“I love my previous job and wanted to come to grad school to learn how to do it better,” Mai said. “But I came to realize that I want to do something new, moving more into analytical technology as a potential career path.”
Mai, who is due to complete her PhD in summer 2026, encourages her peers to seek out internship opportunities to explore future career options, as well as to hone professional experience to be more competitive in the job market. She also highlights leadership experience — mentoring undergraduates, serving as a teaching assistant, and organizing professional activities — as complementary preparation for industry roles.
“Industry employers value collaboration and the ability to support others’ success,” she said.
From Internship to Entrepreneurship
For Gabriel Gusmão (PhD 2023), who earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in Brazil, an internship helped expand his view of where a chemical engineering PhD could lead.
During his doctoral studies at Georgia Tech, Gusmão received a prestigious IBM PhD Fellowship, which provided both financial support and a connection to researchers at IBM. That relationship led to a summer 2022 internship with IBM Research in San Jose, California, where he modeled reversible polymerization systems with applications in recyclable materials and the circular economy.
Although the project was not directly aligned with his dissertation research in chemical kinetics and scientific machine learning, the underlying methods translated across systems. “The mathematics of how you describe chemical reactions is very similar,” he said.
The experience also exposed him to a highly collaborative, interdisciplinary research environment. The internship provided both technical and practical benefits. In addition to gaining experience working across teams, Gusmão received relocation support and compensation that helped ease the financial burden of the final year of his PhD.
Today, Gusmão is applying those skills in a new context. Based in Atlanta, he serves as chief machine learning officer and interim chief technology officer at GlucoSense, a startup developing real-time models for glucose metabolism and diabetes management. The platform integrates data from glucose monitors and wearable devices to provide insights into users’ health patterns.
When Gusmão enrolled at Georgia Tech, he already had five years of experience in the chemical industry with Braskem in Brazil, but he wasn’t sure what path his career would take. The thought of pursuing entrepreneurship hadn’t crossed his mind. However, the experience of working at the intersection of machine learning and chemical engineering — reinforced by his internship — helped him see new opportunities to apply his research beyond traditional settings.
“Connections made during internships can open doors later in a career,” Gusmão said.
As career pathways for PhD graduates continue to diversify, internships are playing a growing role in preparing students for what comes next. They provide a bridge between academic research and real-world application, helping students build experience, confidence, and professional connections. For many, that bridge is becoming an essential part of doctoral training.
Gabriel Gusmão