High school research programs can give you early hands-on experience with the tools and methods scientists use in their actual work. Most of these programs also involve reading and synthesizing scientific literature, drafting reports, and learning the safety and compliance protocols that every working lab operates under, providing a wealth of cross-field experience in a single setting. Many wrap up with a poster or oral presentation, so you’ll get practice translating complex findings into a format that a broader scientific audience can engage with.
Why should you choose a program in Minnesota?
Minnesota has some of the top research infrastructure in the country, especially if you’re interested in the biological sciences. The University of Minnesota is one of the country’s top public research universities, with particular depth in cardiovascular medicine, cancer biology, environmental science, and natural resources research. Mayo Clinic in Rochester is one of the most respected medical research institutions in the world, and its presence means Minnesota students have access to cancer researchers, neurologists, and biomedical scientists that peers in many other states won’t have. The state is also home to a dense cluster of medical technology companies, including Medtronic and Boston Scientific, making it one of the highest concentrations of biomedical industry anywhere in the country. If you’re drawn to ecology or environmental science, Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes and its position at the headwaters of the Mississippi River give you easy access to a research context around freshwater systems.
This article highlights the broad range of offerings available in Minnesota, featuring research programs handpicked across several verticals. We’ve also included some virtual offerings that any Minnesotan high schooler can access from anywhere. With that being said, if you’re looking for summer research opportunities not restricted to Minnesota, you can check out our other blog here.
Key Takeaways
- Minnesota offers exceptional research infrastructure for high schoolers, including access to University of Minnesota labs, Mayo Clinic researchers, and a dense cluster of medical technology companies like Medtronic and Boston Scientific
- Programs range from highly selective paid lab placements (Lillehei Heart Institute, Hormel Institute, M-ASCEND) to free virtual options accessible from anywhere in the state (sci-MI, GL4HS, ASSIP)
- Several programs offer stipends ranging from $400 to $3,000, meaning hands-on research experience doesn’t have to come at a cost
- Most programs culminate in a poster presentation, written report, or conference submission, giving you real practice communicating scientific findings to professional audiences
13 Research Programs for High School Students in Minnesota
1. Lillehei Heart Institute Summer Research Scholars
Location: University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN
Cost: No cost, all scholars receive an hourly wage
Acceptance rate: Incredibly selective, only 2 high school spots available for approximately 70 applicants
Dates: June 1 – July 24
Application deadline: February 15
Eligibility: High school juniors and seniors aged 16+ who are U.S. citizens
You’ll spend eight weeks as a working member of a cardiovascular research lab, assigned to a University of Minnesota faculty mentor conducting basic science or clinical research related to heart disease. The daily work involves hands-on laboratory research, and weekly seminars from faculty and industry leaders give you a broader view of where careers in cardiovascular medicine can lead. The program also includes field trips and exposure to clinical and industrial settings alongside the academic research environment. At the end of the summer, you present a poster at the annual Cardiovascular Scientific Retreat alongside faculty and graduate researchers. Two high school students are selected each year from approximately 70 applicants, making this one of the most exclusive research placements available to Minnesota students!
2. Breck School’s Advanced Science Research (ASR) Program
Location: Breck School, Golden Valley, MN
Cost: Not specified
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: Late May – Early June
Application deadline: February 1
Eligibility: Breck School students with a strong interest in science and engineering
While Breck School’s ASR is only open to existing Breck students, its extensive supportive research mentorship makes it a great option for you to explore. It either matches you with a university research lab or supports your work on an advanced individual project, committing at least 320 hours over the summer. After the summer, you’ll also take the ASR class to analyze your results, write research papers, and present at science fairs and symposiums. This program helps you build research skills and deepen your understanding of scientific studies.
3. NASA OSTEM Internship
Location: Across NASA centers nationwide; on-site or remote, depending on project
Cost: Free, with most positions offering a stipend
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective
Dates: Three annual sessions: Fall (16 weeks, approximately September-December), Spring (16 weeks, approximately January-May), Summer (10 weeks, approximately June-August)
Application deadline: Varies by session, May 22 for the fall term)
Eligibility: High school students who are at least 16 years old with a minimum GPA of 3.0. Must be U.S. citizens.
NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement places you on an active NASA project, working alongside the scientists and engineers running it. The scope is wide enough that positions in space science, engineering, aeronautics, earth observation, robotics, technology, space microbiology, and more are available, depending on which project you’re matched with and which center you’re placed at. Virtual positions are available in addition to on-site placements at NASA centers across the country. You’ll build technical skills through hands-on project work, and professional development programming runs throughout the internship. NASA OSTEM is one of the premier entry points into NASA for committed high schoolers.
4. MIT PRIMES-USA
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: January 1 – December 31
Application deadline: December 1
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors residing in the United States outside the Greater Boston area
MIT PRIMES-USA connects you with an MIT faculty member or graduate student researcher to tackle open questions in mathematics, complex problems that have persisted for years without known solutions. You communicate remotely with your mentor throughout the year, progressing through phases that take you from reading foundational literature to producing and presenting original results. Projects are individual or small-group, and the work culminates in a research paper submitted to a conference or journal. The program accepts only students with strong mathematical backgrounds, and the problem set required to apply gives you a preview of the depth the year ahead demands.
5. M-ASCEND High School Summer Internship
Location: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Cost: Free; this is a paid internship
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective
Dates: Summer
Application deadline: Distributed directly to eligible scholars, not publicly posted
Eligibility: Students at M-ASCEND partner high schools (Brooklyn Center, Central, Harding, Hiawatha, Highland Park, Johnson, Patrick Henry, Roosevelt, South, Washington Tech) who have also participated in the M-ASCEND High School Scholars Program. Must be aged 16+.
This program grows out of M-ASCEND’s school-year Scholar program, allowing you to enter the summer internship already having a grounding in cancer research, health disparities science, and community-based participatory research. The summer experience takes that foundation into hands-on research territory, pairing you with a University of Minnesota researcher to complete an individualized project. The community-based participatory research model that drives M-ASCEND means your work is framed around health disparities affecting real Minnesota communities rather than abstract laboratory questions. You’ll present your findings at the UMN Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium alongside undergraduate researchers. A service-learning component in the following school year lets you carry the work forward beyond the summer.
6. Hormel Institute High School Summer Research Scholar
Location: Hormel Institute, Austin, MN
Cost: $3,000 stipend
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective
Dates: 8 weeks in the summer
Application deadline: Keep an eye on the program website for the next cycle’s deadline
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors or graduating seniors with a 3.5 GPA. Must have completed a high school biology course.
This program takes you into the working life of a biomedical research institute over eight weeks. Each day, you’ll be inside the labs at The Hormel Institute experiencing the research process by carrying out lab tasks, observing ongoing experiments, analyzing data, and engaging with scientific literature relevant to your assigned work. The small cohort size enables consistent, individual attention from researchers who know your work. You’ll build a comprehensive research portfolio across the eight weeks, documenting what you’ve learned and done, participate in professional development sessions on research ethics and career pathways, and present a poster at a research symposium.
7. ASSIP at George Mason University
Location: Multiple virtual opportunities available
Cost: $1,299
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: June 18 – August 12
Application Deadline: February 15
Eligibility: High school students aged 15 and older
ASSIP places you in a one-on-one research relationship with a George Mason University faculty member, working on that researcher’s active projects across fields ranging from astronomy, neuroscience, and environmental science to data science, biochemistry, and proteomics. Many faculty members allow for remote internships, letting you engage in hypothesis-driven research without necessarily having to be physically present in the lab. Scientific writing is naturally a major component of the experience, and past interns have had their work published in journals or presented at major conferences. Some have even co-filed patents! This is one of the few programs at this level that students can access from anywhere, and even lets you earn three college credits from George Mason University upon completion.
8. HERO — Healthcare Experiences and Research in Oncology
Location: Virtual
Cost: No cost, students earn a $500 stipend
Acceptance rate: Highly competitive
Dates: July 20–31
Application deadline: April 24
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores through seniors who are Minnesota residents and U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Over two weeks, you’ll learn from cancer experts from Mayo Clinic, the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Medical College of Wisconsin, and the University of Iowa about the various causes of cancer, how it can be prevented, and its diagnosis and treatment. The curriculum moves through cancer biology, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and patient care and support, providing a whole-disease picture. Home-based experiments are part of the program: you’ll receive a lab kit and carry out research activities as part of your coursework. Career panels, case studies, and a presentation of student discoveries round out the two weeks. For Minnesota students interested in oncology, this provides direct contact with some of the leading cancer research institutions in the Midwest.
9. Hormel Institute BioDiscovery Internship
Location: Hormel Institute, Austin, MN
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly competitive
Dates: Summer
Application deadline: May 1
Eligibility: Students entering grades 10, 11, or 12
BioDiscovery is an introductory biomedical research opportunity for high school students. Working under the guidance of Hormel Institute researchers, you’ll perform basic laboratory experiments, learn to clean and maintain lab bench space, and get familiar with compliance and safety protocols. You’ll keep track of lab inventory, attend lab meetings as an active participant, and engage in professional development opportunities alongside the bench work. The program offers two sessions, and in keeping with its introductory nature, prior science experience is not required to apply. The goal is less about producing independent research outputs and more about giving you a real sense of the daily rhythms and responsibilities of a functioning research lab.
10. Go4Brains
Location: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Cost: No cost, participants earn a $400 stipend
Acceptance rate: Extremely selective
Dates: July 20–24
Application deadline: March 1
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–11 from the Twin Cities metro area, with a priority given to students who have faced barriers to accessing science and medicine opportunities
Go4Brains condenses a week of genuine neuroscience immersion into five days of short lectures, a poster session, career skills workshops, and time with researchers at multiple career stages. You’ll hold a human brain, get a printout of your own brain’s electrical activity from an EEG recording, tour working neuroscience research labs, and conduct experiments alongside undergraduate, graduate, and faculty mentors. One of the program’s more distinctive elements is that students also participate in outreach activities, helping teach younger kids about neuroscience, which gives you a chance to explain and solidify what you’re learning in real time. For students in the Twin Cities who want a meaningful first look at brain research before committing to a summer-long program, Go4Brains is a valuable offering.
11. Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program
Location: Various locations in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, and the Pacific Islands; mentor placement within 30–45 minutes of your home
Cost: None, you can earn a $3,000 stipend
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Flexible 8-week window in June – August; dates set between student and mentor
Application deadline: January 25
Eligibility: Rising high school seniors and rising college freshmen, who are at least 16 years old, and live within the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, and the Pacific Islands
One of this program’s defining features is that every Hutton Scholar is matched with a local fisheries professional within roughly a 45-minute commute from home. What you actually do across eight weeks depends on where your mentor works and what their active projects involve. You might spend your days in the field assessing fish and aquatic invertebrate populations, on a boat collecting data, conducting water analyses in a laboratory, or working inside a fish hatchery. Habitat protection, restoration, and management projects are common. Field trips can involve overnight work at distant sites. You’ll also write a mid-summer report and a final report, giving the experience a real accountability structure that mirrors professional science. Through all of it, you’re working with people who make their living in fisheries and aquatic science.
12. Science Mentorship Institute (sci-MI)
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Late June – early August
Application deadline: May 1
Eligibility: Open to all high school students worldwide
sci-MI’s model is built on the idea that research tools such as published literature, open datasets, and textbooks are freely available, and that what most students actually lack is a knowledgeable person willing to work through it with them. The program pairs you one-on-one with a mentor (in some tracks, small-group work is also part of the experience) across disciplines, including neuroscience, biology, computer science, electrical engineering, and chemistry. The work is flexible and self-directed to a significant degree: mentors advise you on a schedule that functions more like a private tutorial than a regimented class. You’ll develop an independent research project rooted in open-source materials over the course of the summer, and the work culminates in a written and/or presented project. No prior research experience or academic credentials are required for entry.
13. NASA GeneLab for High Schools (GL4HS)
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate/Cohort Size: Not specified
Dates: June 1 – August 28
Application Deadline: March 15
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents with a minimum 3.0 GPA
GL4HS gives you access to biological data collected aboard the International Space Station and other NASA platforms, stored in NASA’s GeneLab database. Over twelve weeks, you’ll learn the bioinformatics tools and computational biology methods needed to analyze this data and study how space conditions such as microgravity and radiation affect biological systems at the molecular level. The program is fully asynchronous, which means you work through the material on your own schedule without synchronized class meetings. If you want a more applied component, you can pursue an optional team capstone project. The top-performing teams get to present their findings at a national space science conference. For anyone interested in genomics, computational biology, or astrobiology, this is one of the few programs that puts actual space biology data in your hands.
One more option – Horizon Academic Research Program
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program in subjects like data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, and chemistry, 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!
Frequently Asked Questions
What research programs are available for high school students in Minnesota? Minnesota high schoolers can access a wide range of research programs, from lab placements at the University of Minnesota and the Hormel Institute to virtual options like NASA GL4HS and sci-MI. Programs span fields including cardiovascular medicine, cancer biology, neuroscience, fisheries science, mathematics, and computational biology.
Do I need prior research experience to apply to these programs? Not always. Programs such as Hormel Institute BioDiscovery, sci-MI, and Go4Brains are explicitly designed for students with little or no prior research experience. More selective placements, such as the Lillehei Heart Institute Scholars program or MIT PRIMES-USA, expect demonstrated academic strength in relevant subjects.
Are there paid research programs for high school students in Minnesota? Yes. Several programs on this list offer stipends or hourly wages. The Lillehei Heart Institute pays an hourly wage; the Hormel Institute Summer Research Scholar program includes a $3,000 stipend, Go4Brains provides $400, HERO offers $500, and the Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program provides $3,000.
Are there virtual research programs Minnesota students can access? Yes. MIT PRIMES-USA, sci-MI, ASSIP, HERO, and NASA GL4HS are all fully virtual or offer remote participation. These are strong options if you’re outside the Twin Cities metro area or prefer a flexible schedule.
What fields can I research through these Minnesota programs? Available research areas are broad. You can explore cardiovascular medicine, cancer biology, oncology, neuroscience, fisheries and aquatic science, mathematics, bioinformatics, space biology, environmental science, and more, depending on the program.
When should I start applying to research programs in Minnesota? Deadlines vary significantly. Some programs, like the Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program and MIT PRIMES-USA, close as early as January and December respectively. Others, like Hormel Institute BioDiscovery and sci-MI, have spring deadlines around May. Checking program websites in the fall and applying in the first available window is the safest approach.
Image Source: University of Minnesota