About

The Wolfram High School Summer Research Program is a two-and-a-half-week residential program hosted at Bentley University, designed for students aged 14–17 with strong interest in STEM and computational thinking. The program is run entirely by Wolfram Research — the company behind Wolfram Language, Mathematica, and Wolfram|Alpha — and gives participants direct access to Wolfram's research staff, including Stephen Wolfram himself, who is involved in project selection. The program requires no prior programming experience; a pre-program virtual workshop introduces Wolfram Language basics before arrival, and an on-site boot camp reinforces fundamentals in the opening days.

The curriculum moves through three phases: intensive Wolfram Language instruction via active-learning workshops and boot camp; deep-dive lectures on topics ranging from machine learning and natural language processing to computational poetry and physics — delivered by Wolfram Research staff and external guest speakers; and extended independent project time, with each student working toward a computational essay and interactive research paper under the guidance of an expert mentor. Projects are genuinely student-driven and span an unusually wide range — past work includes quantum energy teleportation in the Wolfram Quantum Framework, diatomic molecular orbital visualization, and chaotic mineral flow simulations for deposition analysis. Completed computational essays are published on the program's website and are eligible for submission to science competitions and academic journals.

What distinguishes this program from most computational summer experiences is its pipeline depth. Successful participants are invited into the Wolfram Emerging Leaders Program for longer-term mentored projects, can join the teaching team at subsequent Wolfram programs, and the most talented students have been offered internships at Wolfram Research directly. For students with serious interest in computational science, mathematics, or AI — particularly those drawn to Wolfram's specific approach to computation as a universal scientific language — the program offers access to an ecosystem that extends well beyond the two-and-a-half weeks on campus.