Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Opportunities will be shared here as they become available.

Research Associate/Technician - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/HHMI/Harvard Medical School/Broad Institute 

Kadoch Laboratory - Chromatin and gene regulation in human disease 

The Kadoch Laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is seeking a highly qualified post-baccalaureate student to join our vibrant research team as a Research Associate focused on cancer biology, epigenetics, and chromatin regulation. Our lab uses multidisciplinary approaches including biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, chemical biology, epigenomics and others to explore the mechanisms of chromatin remodeling complexes, which are frequently mutated in human cancers and other diseases. Our exciting and diverse set of projects involve collaborations across the Harvard and MIT centers in Boston and Cambridge as well as world-wide. This is a highly unique opportunity with potential for the student to work directly with the PI as well as senior postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and medical students to carry forward independent projects resulting in authorship on publications and opportunities to present work at local, national, and international meetings. This position is ideal for students aiming to pursue either PhD, MD, or combined MD/PhD programs as their next steps. 

The successful applicant will have advanced experience in one or more of the following areas: molecular biology, cell culture and model systems, protein biochemistry, structural biology, cell biology, genetics and/or genomics-centered methodologies, through focused prior lab research experience (i.e. 1-2 years in research laboratories with strong letters of recommendation) as well as undergraduate coursework. We are looking for candidates who can commit to two (2) years of availability, graduating from colleges/universities this Spring 2026 and considering applying to top-tier graduate and/or medical school (PhD/MD/MD-PhD) programs following their tenure in the lab. To date, all postbac research associate lab members in this position have gone on to pursue PhD, MD, or MD/PhD programs at highest-tier institutions. Dr. Kadoch is firmly committed to mentorship, career guidance and support, and other senior lab personnel will also provide consistent research and career mentorship. The ideal candidate will be exceptionally motivated, highly communicative, mature, detail- and goal-oriented, able to work both independently and in teams, and will possess excellent organizational, communication, and analytical skills. 

Please contact Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D., directly at cigall_kadoch@dfci.harvard.edu for more information if interested (along with CV/resume), and please copy Dr. Kadoch’s assistant, Ms. Kristen Applegate, at kadochoffice@gmail.com. We will hire for this position(s) on a rolling basis over the coming months with target start date of May-July 2026, and will close the position once new hires have been confirmed. 

For more information about our laboratory, please see the (to be updated) Kadoch Lab website at http://www.kadochlab.org , our recent publications (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=kadoch+c), and news via our X handles, @kadochlab, and @ckadoch. 

Computational Biologist Position - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/HHMI/Harvard Medical School/Broad Institute 

Kadoch Laboratory - Chromatin and gene regulation in human disease 

The Kadoch Laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Broad Institute, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute is seeking a highly qualified individual who has recently obtained or is about to obtain a BA/BS degree to join our vibrant research team as a Computational Biologist focused on cancer biology, epigenetics, and chromatin regulation. Our lab uses multidisciplinary approaches including biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, chemical biology, and functional genomics, epigenomics, and AI-based approaches to explore the mechanisms of chromatin remodeling complexes, which are among the most frequently mutated cellular entities in human cancers and other diseases. As such, our computationally centered projects in the lab are highly diverse and involve extensive genomics (i.e. analysis of diverse sequencing methods including DNA-sequencing, RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), ATAC-seq, ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, CUT&TAG, single-cell ATAC+RNA-seq, among other approaches), analysis of functional screening datasets (i.e. genome-wide as well as targeted CRISPR- and base editing-based screens for cell fitness or other cellular outcomes), 3D structural biology (i.e. use of Pymol, UCSF Chimera for structural analysis, mapping mutations, etc.), analysis and integration of mass-spectrometry proteomics datasets, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and systems-biology-focused efforts (i.e. large genomics and proteomics dataset analysis and integration, Deep Mind Alphafold, Rosetta, other approaches). Our exciting collection of ongoing projects involve collaborations with laboratories across the Harvard and MIT research centers, hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, as well as with groups across the country and internationally. This is a unique opportunity with significant potential for the student to work directly with the PI as well as with senior postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and medical students. In addition to working as part of a team(s), the student will carry forward independent projects resulting in authorship on publications and opportunities to present work at local, national, and international meetings. 

The successful applicant will have coding experience (i.e. in R, Python, or other languages) relevant to computational biology/bioinformatics, familiarity with working in a Unix environment and use of SLURM or similar job scheduler (high performance computing and computing clusters), working knowledge of genomic technologies and bioinformatic processes and/or structural biology, ability to both implement and develop new bioinformatic pipelines in shell scripts, interest and proven abilities in data visualization (such as in ggplot2, matplotlib, D3.js etc.), and proficiency in documenting research processes to ensure reproducibility (e.g., markdown syntax and Git/GitHub) as well as experience in one or more of the following areas: computational biology/computer science, molecular biology, genetics and/or genomics, cell biology, and protein biochemistry and/or structural biology, through focused prior dry or wet lab research experience (i.e. 1-2 years in research laboratories with strong letters of recommendation) as well as undergraduate coursework. 

We are looking for candidates who will be available for two years in the lab; in particular, we are looking for candidates who are graduating from colleges/universities this Spring 2026 and considering applying to top-tier graduate and/or medical school (PhD/MD/MD-PhD) programs following their tenure in the lab, *OR*, aiming to function as a senior staff computational biologist in the academic setting for years to come. To date, all postbac computational biology lab members in this position have gone on to pursue PhD, MD, or MD/PhD programs at highest-tier institutions; Dr. Kadoch is firmly committed to mentorship, career guidance and support, and other senior lab personnel will also provide consistent research and career mentorship. The ideal candidate will be exceptionally motivated, highly communicative, mature, detail and goal oriented, able to work both independently and in teams, and will possess excellent organizational, communication, and analytical skills. 

Please contact Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D., directly at cigall_kadoch@dfci.harvard.edu for more information if interested (along with CV/resume), and please copy Dr. Kadoch’s assistant, Ms. Kristen Applegate, at kadochoffice@gmail.com. We will hire for this position(s) on a rolling basis over the coming months with target start date of May-July 2026, and will close the position once new hires have been confirmed. 

For more information about our laboratory, please see the (to be updated) Kadoch Lab website at http://www.kadochlab.org , our recent publications (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=kadoch+c), and news via our X handles, @kadochlab, and @ckadoch.

Cientifico Latino Graduate School Application Mentorship Program - Virtual Open House

The Graduate School Mentorship Initiative (GSMI), will be entering its 7th year, it is a 9-month mentorship program open to students from all backgrounds, especially those from low-income, first-generation, and students from underserved communities, where we provide 100 students each year with the mentorship, resources, and financial support to navigate the graduate school application process in the sciences. Since 2019, we have helped 580 students matriculate into graduate school, you can learn more about our work in a publication in Cell.

Applications are scheduled to go live on Tuesday, March 3rd on the GSMI web page.  A virtual open house on Cientifico Latino’s graduate school application mentorship program will take place on Monday, March 16 at 1pm ET, if you are interested in applying to graduate school this Fall 2026, you can learn more here.