Internship - 2027 Undergraduate and Master's Research & Development Intern

3M; Minnesota; On-site; USD 18,000 - 24,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Housing stipend

Transportation stipend

Job summary

3M invites undergraduates and Master’s students to join a 10–12 week Summer 2027 R&D internship, providing hands-on experience with new technologies and cross-functional collaboration. The internship includes a housing and transportation stipend under current policy.

Successful candidates will work with senior researchers, document results, and develop skills in data science, ML, and product engineering across digital and laboratory areas.

Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in science or engineering from an accredited institution.
• Preferred majors include Chemical, Mechanical, Materials, Computer, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, or related fields.

Responsibilities

• Support development of new technologies and product concepts.
• Collaborate with R&D teams across functions and locations.
• Document experimental results and maintain lab records.
• Assist in data analysis, modeling, and interpretation of results.
• Contribute to intellectual property exploration and invention submissions.

Skills

Python

Data analysis

Machine learning basics

Communication

Leadership potential

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in STEM

Enrollment in relevant program

Tools

Azure ML

AWS ML

MATLAB

Job description

Internship - 2027 Undergraduate and Master's Research & Development Intern

The role of Undergraduate and Master's Research & Development Intern is intended to start in Summer 2027.

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers.

An internship is a temporary position within 3M. Interns typically work a full-time schedule throughout a 10-12 week assignment. This position is limited to working 899 hours per service credit year. 3M provides eligible interns with a housing and transportation stipend in accordance with current policy.

This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career.

The Impact You’ll Make in this Role

• Leveraging expertise to support the development of new technologies, providing growth opportunities, in addition to supporting existing 3M products, businesses, and operations.
• Building your technical, communication, and leadership skills.
• Collaborating with other R&D functions across 3M that can help advance projects, including researchers from other groups, analytical chemists, process engineers, etc.
• Collaborating with senior researchers on an assigned product/technology development or an application/product engineering project.
• Leading and directing assigned projects towards advanced technical solutions.
• Documenting detailed experimental records in 3M electronic laboratory notebooks that can be used for invention submissions and potentially patent applications.
• Analyzing, interpreting, and communicating experimental results.

R&D internships are available for both digital science and laboratory-based roles in the following areas:

• Corporate technology: Researchers working in one of our corporate R&D laboratories are concerned with the materials, processes, and/or analytical tools that go into the development of new technologies/methods and the generation of intellectual property, including patents. Projects in corporate technology may involve formulation science, synthetic chemistry, process design/control, materials characterization, development of new analytical techniques, materials scale-up, etc.
• Product engineering and development: interns working as product engineers or developers will collaborate with other researchers in our business and corporate research laboratories to address challenges in existing products and/or develop new products. Projects in the product engineering and development space may involve formulation science, process design/control, materials characterization, voice of customers, etc.
• Digital science and engineering: interns working in this area will use and/or develop digital science tools to address research challenges in the corporate research and business labs. Projects in the digital science and engineering space may involve: optimizing algorithms for computational efficiency, speed, and usability; building capabilities with software tools e.g., Microsoft Azure ML and/or AWS ML, Python; implementing complex data engineering processes to support innovative data science solutions; leveraging key ML or AI solutions toward materials and engineering problems; developing innovative models and simulations of complex chemical and physical processes.

Your Skills And Expertise

To set you up for success in this role from day one, 3M is looking for candidates who must have the following qualifications:

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in science or engineering from an accredited institution.

Additional qualifications that could help you succeed even further in this role include:

• Currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in fields such as Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Software Engineering, Chemistry, Polymer Science, Biomolecular Engineering, or related disciplines from an accredited institution.
• Experience in machine learning, deep learning, data science, computer vision, artificial intelligence, statistics, software engineering, and/or applied mathematics.
• Strong scientific and technical acumen, with demonstrated interest and ability to make connections between science/technology and real-world concerns.
• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Ability to deal with the ambiguity of early-stage scouting and evaluation of new opportunities, and the flexibility to change direction as additional information becomes available.
• Leadership and networking skills.
• Self-motivated and self-directed.
• Excellent communication skills (oral, written, and presentation).
• Completed a minimum of Freshman Year (2 semesters) by the start of the internship.
• 6-12 months of practical laboratory experience in the synthesis of polymers and small molecules, chemical/polymer processing, advanced analytical and materials characterization, vapor coating, nanotechnology, development of sensors, and optical materials.
• Hands-on experience in areas such as additive manufacturing, robotics, mechanical design, and/or hard goods.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure ML and/or AWS ML.
• Fluent in one or more programming languages (e.g., Python, MATLAB, C, C++, and/or R).
• Ability to apply object-oriented design and/or design patterns to software development.
• Fluent in understanding, manipulating, cleansing, and visualizing complex data.
• Experience working with complex, distributed Big Data workflows.
• Previous relevant intern experience or co-op with a company or university.
• Use of designed experiments and statistical analysis of experimental results.
• Dem