Undergraduate Bioinformatics Training and Research at the CBCB

CBCB faculty are actively involved in the mentoring of undergraduate students, both through course offerings and through the involvment of undergraduates in research projects. This page provides an outline of the opportunities available to undergraduate students to receive training in bioinformatics. For more information click on one of the following links:

Information for Prospective Students

Undergraduate Bioinformatics opportunities

While there is no Bioinformatics program at the University of Maryland, students interested in this field can tailor their course work to obtain the necessary background.  Follow the links below for more information:

Program Areas

Some programs related to Bioinformatics include:

Undergraduate research opportunities

The CBCB provides a unique opportunity for motivated undergraduates to get involved in bioinformatics research. Research positions are available within the center both during the summer (see Summer Program below) and during the academic year as part of the Honors Program in the CS department (see Honors Research below).

Past research projects by undergraduates and high-school students are listed on our Junior Research page.

Undergraduate Summer Program at the CBCB

Applications for Summer 2009 are no longer accepted!
Applications for Summer 2010 will be accepted in late Fall

The Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) at the University of Maryland announces the availability of research positions in the summer program for qualified undergraduate students.  This program provides young scientists with the opportunity to develop their bioinformatics skills while working together with the scientific staff at the center on problems of current scientific interest.

 The University of Maryland Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology is a multidisciplinary center dedicated to research on questions arising from the genome revolution. CBCB brings together scientists and engineers from many fields, including computer science, molecular biology, genomics, mathematics, statistics, physics, and biochemistry, all of whom share a common interest in gaining a better understanding of how life works.

 The summer program at the CBCB is a full-time (40 hours/week) employment program offering a compensation of $10/hour.

 Eligible students must be enrolled full time and have completed two years of their education.  A 'B' average is required as well as solid programming skills.

 Applicants must provide:

  • an up to date resume

  • a one page essay indicating their objectives for this internship

  • current college transcripts

  • one recommendation letter from a teacher or mentor

Applications are no longer accepted for Summer 2009

The summer program is supported in part by the NSF under grant IIS-0812111 .


Honors Research at the CBCB

Several positions are available at the CBCB for conducting research in bioinformatics as part of the CS Honors program. Interested students can directly contact individual faculty members. In addition, specific opportunities will be listed below:

  • Cloud computing in bioinformatics. (Contact Prof. Mihai Pop) Available: 2 paid positions ($10/hour during the academic year). New DNA sequencing technologies are generating large amounts of data at significantly higher pace than possible just a few years ago. The analysis of new generation sequencing data poses significant computational challenges, both due to the sheer size of the data-sets being analyzed and due to individual characteristics of the new sequences. We are currently conducting research to evaluate whether highly-parallel computing clusters can be used to efficiently analyze such data, with the goal of providing researchers with the ability to rent CPU cycles rather than have to implement and maintain an expensive computational infrastructure in their labs. We are primarily focused on algorithms for sequence alignment and for genome assembly.

    Students who are interested in this research should contact Prof. Pop (mpop at umiacs dot umd dot edu). Note: only Honors students are eligible for the paid positions. Appointments will be made on a first-come, first-serve basis.

    This research opportunity is funded by the NSF, grant IIS-0844494, and will be active through March 2011.