About

The Barrow Neurological Institute Summer High School Internship Program places high school students directly in research labs at one of the world's top neurology and neurosurgery centers. Barrow, located in Phoenix, Arizona, ranks among the top ten neurosurgery institutions globally according to Newsweek and is consistently ranked first in the United States for neurology and neurosurgery by US News & World Report — an institutional home that is essentially without peer for a high school research program in the neurosciences. The program has operated for more than 20 years through Barrow's Department of Translational Neuroscience and is free of charge.

The 2026 summer cycle runs from a mandatory orientation on June 5 through a High School Symposium on July 9 — approximately five weeks of active research. Students are placed in Barrow research laboratories and work hands-on with cutting-edge technology under the mentorship of Barrow scientists, with the explicit program objective of developing projects suitable for presentation at local and national scientific competitions or for publication in the scientific literature. Research areas span the full breadth of Barrow's translational neuroscience portfolio, which includes Alzheimer's disease, ALS, brain tumors, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, stroke, spinal cord injury, and neurorehabilitation, among others. Beyond laboratory work, interns attend physician-led seminars, technology workshops, and a career panel featuring Barrow faculty, medical students, and graduate students. The summer concludes with a formal research symposium at which students present their work to peers and Barrow faculty. Students accepted into the program also have the opportunity to continue their lab work beyond the summer through Barrow's year-round volunteer research program.

The program is commuter-only — no housing is provided — and is located in Phoenix, making it a practical option primarily for Arizona-area students, though no geographic restriction is formally stated. Students must be at least 16 years old. The application requires a letter of intent, one letter of recommendation from a professional mentor, and a completed online form; transcripts are not required. Applicants interested in laboratory research are asked to review Barrow's lab descriptions before applying and indicate which lab best fits their interests — a step that functions as an informal second filter, as placement depends on lab-level interest in the applicant. Applications for 2026 opened January 6 and closed February 10; future cycles are expected to follow a similar January–February window. The program is unpaid; participants are classified as volunteers.

For an Arizona-area student serious about neuroscience, neurology, or neurosurgery, Barrow is a rare opportunity to work in a clinical research environment of genuine international standing. The institutional caliber, the publication and competition objectives, and the 20-year program history place this well above comparable hospital-based enrichment programs. The absence of a stipend and the commuter-only format are the meaningful constraints; everything else about this program punches significantly above its public profile.