LHSI Intern: Behavioral Neuroscience & Neurophysiology

Program Summary:    

This internship is offered as a part of the Life-Health Sciences Internship Program (LHSI). This program connects 125 IU Indianapolis undergraduates per year with internships on campus with faculty and staff in a variety of health and science related campus areas/programs. All LHSI internships start in August 2025 and end in May 2026 and are paid $13/hour for up to 10 hours per week. Work-study is accepted but not required.  

Supervisor: Dr. Susan Sangha 

Department/Office: Medicine; Psychiatry and Stark Neuroscience Research Institute 

Overview of the internship site: We are interested in how cues in the environment representing safety can regulate fear. Clinical disorders arising from maladaptive emotion regulation present a large burden on society worldwide and many of these disorders show comorbidity, for example, addiction with anxiety disorders. Even though there has been much research on reward and fear processing, the majority of studies have been conducted in parallel, investigating the neuronal circuitries separately. Our lab uses a behavioral paradigm designed to assess how safety cues can regulate fear and reward seeking behaviors in both male and female rats. We hope by investigating how safety, fear and reward circuits integrate their functions to influence behavior, we will be able to better understand and treat disorders resulting from maladaptive emotion regulation. 

Website for more information: www.sanghalab.com 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Handling rats (e.g. placing them into/taking them out of training boxes), assisting with behavioral experiments and brain surgeries, assisting with data analysis (computer work, brain tissue work) 

Work Environment and Dress Code: The work is performed primarily in a lab setting with dress code: work with animals and chemicals so no strong perfumes or open toed shoes, etc. 

Project-specific qualifications: Prior to entering the lab there will be online training for animal work (which is required to gain permission to work with animals from the medical school). Being comfortable with working with awake rodents as all experiments involve behavioral assessments. 

Hours per week: 7-9; flexible within regular work hours 

By the end of the LHSI program, you will: 

Carefully consider, explore, and articulate your career goals, including an analysis of how you arrived at that path and what steps you need to take next. (Community Contributor, Communicator) 

Understand your role and strengths on a professional team and analyze who you would like to become as a professional. (Communicator) 

Gain and strengthen skills relevant to next steps after graduation, such as communication, collaboration, teamwork, analysis/synthesis/evaluation, independence, confronting/challenging failure, problem-solving and perseverance, and constructive criticism. (Problem Solver, Communicator) 

Convey ideas and knowledge effectively through an ePortfolio and presentation of your internship work. (Problem Solver, Communicator) 

Set and meet your own additional learning goals identified with your supervisor. 

LHSI Qualifications    

must be graduating May 2027 or after (usually a current freshman or sophomore in Spring 2025)   

Current full time IU Indianapolis undergraduate in 2025-26  

minimum overall GPA of 2.0   

All majors welcome 

To apply: 

LHSI accepts 125 interns per year. All available sites are listed in Handshake and will start with the position title “LHSI Intern.” Complete the application for LHSI at go.iu.edu/lhsi and list 3-4 internship sites on that application. You will meet with at least 2 of these if selected for interviews.