High school research programs offer a unique experience that other extracurricular programs do not; they put you in working labs where you’ll run real experiments, analyze data, and contribute to real-world projects. They teach you to use techniques like PCR and gel electrophoresis to study gene expression, apply geospatial tools like GIS software to analyze climate or land-use data, or write and test code for AI models or robotics systems. You might also get to operate instruments like mass spectrometers or electron microscopes alongside professional scientists. Many research programs also introduce you to adjacent skills that rarely come up in a classroom, including research ethics, statistical analysis, scientific writing, and the basics of peer review.
Why should you choose a program in Maryland?
Maryland has an excellent intersection of federal science infrastructure and academic research that very few states can match. The National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical research agency in the world, is headquartered in Bethesda and operates multiple institutes and centers. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt handles Earth science, astrophysics, and planetary missions, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg sets the measurement standards that underpin scientific research globally. Beyond these few institutions, Maryland’s I-270 corridor running through Montgomery County has become one of the country’s densest biotech and life sciences clusters, home to organizations like the J. Craig Venter Institute and the IBBR. If you are a high school student in Maryland, you are in one of the few places where world-class research programs exist across a wide enough range of fields.
With that, here are 15 research programs for high school students in Maryland that you should check out.
You can also check out these guides on physics programs, data science programs, or environmental science programs for high school students in Maryland.
1. NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP)
Location: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free!; A monthly stipend based on academic level is offered
Acceptance Rate: Extremely selective
Dates: May 11 – August 31
Application Deadline: February 18
Eligibility: Graduating high school seniors (18+) who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and living within 40 miles of an NIH campus; Must have graduated from high school before the internship begins
Unlike most research programs that assign you to a pre-designed project, the NIH SIP requires you to identify Principal Investigators whose current research interests you and reach out to them directly. If a PI wants you in their lab, you’ll spend the summer as a working member of that research team, contributing to ongoing biomedical science in areas like neuroscience, genetics, cancer biology, immunology, epidemiology, or bioinformatics. The day-to-day work mirrors what graduate students in the same lab are doing: running experiments, analyzing data, reading literature, and troubleshooting methods that are part of the lab’s real scientific agenda. You’ll also attend professional development sessions throughout the summer that cover scientific communication, research ethics, and career planning. The program closes with Summer Poster Day, where you’ll present your work to the broader NIH community.
2. JHU ASPIRE High School Internship
Location: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
Cost/Stipend: None
Acceptance Rate: 7%
Dates: 190 hours completed (30-40 hours per week) between June 23 – August 21
Application Deadline: February 15
Eligibility: Current high school juniors and seniors (15+) with a minimum 2.8 GPA and permanent residence in select Maryland or Virginia counties; See the detailed criteria here
ASPIRE places you in the APL, one of the largest university-affiliated research centers in the country, where you will work on problems in national defense, space science, AI, cybersecurity, and biomedical engineering. Your mentor will be an APL staff member who will pull you into active project work, which means you’ll need to communicate professionally, keep pace with a real research schedule, and push through problems. You’ll conclude the summer with a digital poster documenting your work. Students who build strong relationships with mentors often extend into a year-long academic continuation. Previous projects by interns have included data analytics with Python, analysis of cyber threats, and the usage of cryptography in secure communications.
3. National Space Club Scholars Program at NASA Goddard
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Cost/Stipend: None
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 29 – August 7
Application Deadline: April 17
Eligibility: 10th-12th graders (16+) with a minimum 3.0 GPA; Must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents living within 50 miles of NASA Goddard
The National Space Club Scholars program offers projects from foundational AI model development and aerosol retrieval from the PACE satellite’s Ocean Color Instrument to magnetotail dipolarization physics from the MMS mission, Venus atmospheric probe sensor calibration, and software development for the LISA laser interferometer space antenna. You’ll apply to specific projects through NASA’s STEM Gateway, so you’re targeting work that genuinely aligns with your interests. During the program, you will spend five full days per week in the lab or office alongside NASA engineers and scientists. The experience gives you a realistic picture of how a federal space research center operates, including the pace, the collaboration, the technical problem-solving, and the iteration that goes into real mission support work. Placements span Earth science, astrophysics, space technology, and mission operations.
4. NIST Summer High School Intern Program (SHIP)
Location: NIST, Gaithersburg, MD
Cost/Stipend: None
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 22 – August 7
Application Deadline: January 26
Eligibility: U.S. citizens who are current high school juniors and seniors with a minimum 3.0 GPA; Must be living within 50 miles of the Gaithersburg, MD campus
As a SHIP intern, you will work on a research project inside one of six NIST laboratories covering physics, chemistry, materials measurement, engineering, information technology, or neutron research. You will be assigned your own project with a NIST scientist as your mentor and will be tasked with making progress on an original research question. Past interns have worked on problems including deep learning for crystal structure classification, robotics, and spectroscopy, and some have gone on to publish their work. The environment demands scientific self-direction, so you’ll be expected to think independently, troubleshoot, and drive your project forward without waiting to be told what to do next.
5. J. Craig Venter Institute Summer Internship Program
Location: J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; $17.50/hour
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: 10-15 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: Varies by position
Eligibility: High school students (16+) with a minimum 3.0 GPA; Must be U.S. residents
JCVI’s internship program places you inside an active research group, where you will work on current problems in human genomic medicine, synthetic biology, microbial and environmental genomics, infectious disease, or bioinformatics. Your mentor will be a faculty member or senior scientist who tailors the project to your academic background and learning goals, and you will be expected to contribute to the ongoing research. The program also includes journal club sessions where you’ll read and discuss current scientific papers with JCVI researchers, career development programming, and cross-disciplinary seminars that show how different fields of genomics connect in practice. The program closes with a poster symposium where you present your findings to the institute’s staff.
6. Summer Academic Research Experience (SARE)
Location: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; $3,000
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 22 – August 13
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: High school students from households with collective incomes that do not exceed 200% of the federal poverty limit; Must be either first-generation college goers, attend a high school where the majority are also low income, or have extenuating family circumstances
SARE runs at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and combines active bench research with coursework in scientific writing, data analysis, mathematics, and bioethics. You’ll work in a Hopkins biomedical research lab with mentorship from graduate students and faculty, building the technical competency and analytical ability needed to understand and communicate your own results. The dual focus provides you with both hands-on lab experience and the ability to write and interpret scientific work. The program has even produced student co-authors on peer-reviewed papers!
7. Morgan State University CAEP-2D High School Summer Internship
Location: Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; $500/week stipend + $100 transportation allowance
Acceptance Rate: Extremely selective
Dates: 5 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: April 1
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors or seniors who are U.S. citizens
The DOD Center of Excellence for Advanced Electro-Photonics with 2D Materials at Morgan State is a highly specialized research environment that a high school student will rarely have access to. The center’s work revolves around a class of materials called two-dimensional or van der Waals solids and their behavior, and the research is organized around photovoltaics and photosensors enhanced by plasmonic nanostructures, hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric technologies, and quantum transport effects in strongly spin-orbit coupled 2D materials. As an intern, you’ll be working with thin film fabrication, nanostructure characterization, and the instrumentation used to probe how light and electricity interact at the nanoscale. You’ll also gain experience with tools and techniques that you won’t find in a standard university undergraduate lab, let alone a high school setting.
8. Biophysics Research for Baltimore Teens (BRBT)
Location: JHU Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; Paid internship
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: July 7 – August 7
Application Deadline: Mid-February, tentatively
Eligibility: Rising 10th-12th graders
BRBT starts by building foundational lab skills, including reagent preparation and standard procedures, then moves into microbiology techniques, DNA and protein engineering, and methods like x-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. Part of the program takes place in active Hopkins research labs where you will work directly alongside graduate students, postdocs, and faculty, so you’re getting exposure to what academic science looks like at multiple levels at once. The coursework runs in parallel to the lab work, covering the scientific concepts behind your experiments and allowing you to develop the theoretical understanding.
9. Whiting Internships in Science and Engineering (WISE)
Location: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; Paid internship
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: July 9 – August 7
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: Baltimore City public high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors with As and Bs in all math and science courses
WISE places you inside an active JHU research lab for a four-week paid internship, where you will work on a real project in materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, or biomedical engineering. You’ll work alongside JHU researchers and graduate students, which gives you a clear, unfiltered look at how engineering research operates at a major university and what separates high school science from the real thing. You will also get to attend workshops on scientific communication alongside technical skill development. The program ends with a formal presentation of your research to other WISE students, your host lab, and the broader JHU community.
10. Navy Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP)
Location: One of five labs across Bethesda, Patuxent River, Silver Spring, or Annapolis, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; $4,000 – $4,500
Acceptance Rate: Competitive
Dates: 8 weeks during the summer
Application Deadline: August 1 – November 1
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores to graduating seniors (16+); Must be U.S. citizens
The Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program is the Department of the Navy’s research program for high school students and provides paid research roles at Navy and Marine Corps science and engineering laboratories. At NSWC Carderock in West Bethesda, the Navy’s flagship research facility for ship and submarine engineering, you’ll be placed with a scientist or engineer working on active problems in hull design, hydrodynamics, acoustic silencing, materials science, propulsion, or unmanned vehicle systems. At NAWCAD in Patuxent River, the work centers on aviation systems, flight test operations, and defense technologies tied to naval aircraft. Regardless of the setting, you’ll be made part of a team with a real deliverable. You will be expected to present a final report on your research at the end of the summer.
11. AEOP High School Internship
Location: Multiple army research sites in Maryland (Aberdeen Proving Ground, Adelphi, Fort Detrick/Frederick, Silver Spring)
Cost/Stipend: Free; Paid
Acceptance Rate: Highly competitive
Dates: June – August
Application Deadline: Varies by lab position
Eligibility: High school students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents; Specific roles can have additional criteria
AEOP connects you with a one-on-one research placement at a U.S. Army Research Laboratory or an affiliated university lab in Maryland, where you’ll work under the direct supervision of a professional scientist or engineer on a project tied to Army research priorities. The fields involved span cybersecurity, energetics, biology, materials science, robotics, and engineering. Since the work feeds into Army research programs, you’ll often be using equipment and methods well beyond what a standard school lab would have. Alongside the research itself, you’ll get access to the AEOP Learning Hub, which includes webinars on STEM careers and research areas, and outreach specialists who provide one-on-one support for college readiness. The mentorship is intentional and focused on your development as a researcher.
12. IBBR High School Internship Program
Location: Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, Rockville, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; Paid internship
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 22 – August 7
Application Deadline: February 13
Eligibility: Rising Montgomery County Public School juniors or seniors (16+)
IBBR is a joint research enterprise connecting the University of Maryland, UMB, and NIST, sitting in the center of Maryland’s biotech corridor in Rockville. The high school internship places MCPS students inside this multi-institutional environment to work directly with IBBR scientists. The institute operates advanced bioanalytical equipment, including cryo-electron microscopy, NMR spectroscopy, x-ray crystallography, and mass spectrometry. Your specific work will depend on the research group you’re placed with. Projects here are applied and translational, meaning the science you’re contributing to is moving from laboratory discovery toward real therapeutic, vaccine, or biomanufacturing outcomes.
13. ESTEEM/SER-Quest Summer Program
Location: University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: July 7 – July 31
Application Deadline: March 29
Eligibility: Rising 12th graders intending to attend the University of Maryland, College Park, with a major in engineering; Must have a minimum 3.2 GPA with no C’s in math or science, and have completed Trigonometry, Chemistry, and Pre-Calculus with a B or better
Over four weeks on the UMD College Park campus, you’ll develop a research proposal, conduct a literature review, and carry out an engineering research project in a faculty mentor’s lab, with a graduate or undergraduate student supporting your work along the way. The research focus depends on your placement, spanning the full range of engineering disciplines offered through UMD’s Clark School. Beyond the lab, you’ll tour departmental facilities, attend sessions led by engineering faculty across specializations, and interact with current undergraduate and graduate engineering students, which gives you an honest look at what engineering study and research actually involve before you commit to a college major.
14. Department of Geographical Sciences High School Internship Program (HIP)
Location: Remote
Cost/Stipend: Free; $900
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 15 – July 24
Application Deadline: Late February
Eligibility: High school student from DC, Maryland, or Virginia
HIP pairs you remotely with a UMD faculty member for six weeks of research in geographical sciences, which can take you in the direction of climate change modeling, geospatial analysis, land cover mapping, urban heat, remote sensing, or other active areas in the department. The project is tied to your mentor’s actual research agenda, allowing you to contribute to collaborative work. You’ll develop hands-on proficiency with GIS tools, coding for spatial data analysis, and geospatial methods that carry into careers in environmental science, urban planning, public health, and data science. The program concludes with a poster presentation in the format of an academic conference.
15. Research and Mentoring Program (RAMP)
Location: University of Maryland – Baltimore, Baltimore, MD
Cost/Stipend: Free; Up to $500
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: 5 weeks in July/August each summer
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: High school students (16+) attending a Baltimore City school
RAMP is a two-year program designed to provide sustained exposure to the medical sciences. In your first summer on UMB’s Downtown Baltimore campus, you’ll build foundational lab and clinical research skills, earn certifications in Basic Life Support and Stop the Bleed, and work through group mini-research projects with near-peer college mentors. Throughout the school year, there are lunch sessions covering topics that have included neuroscience with sheep brain dissections, immunology, microbiology lab techniques, public health mock focus groups, research ethics through simulated IRB meetings, and cancer treatment modeling. In your second summer, you’ll be placed in an active UMB research lab working directly alongside a research team on a focused project. Past topics have ranged from NK cell surface expression and brain microenvironment tumors to aging, placental pathology, and pulmonary hypertension.
One more option – Horizon Academic Research Program
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program in subjects like investigative journalism, media studies, political reporting, data journalism, and the ethics of news and information, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper on a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from. You can find the application link here!
Image Source: University of Maryland