"2026 Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research Program"

Job Description

Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research Program (SUMR) is a full-time, paid summer internship presented by the Wharton School's Health Care Management Department and Penn LDI at the University of Pennsylvania that introduces promising undergraduates to health services research. The 12-week program aims to promote students to conduct research in graduate programs in the fields of health economics, health care management, health policy, population health, and clinical epidemiology.

SUMR 2026 will start May 26, 2026 and end on August 14, 2026.

What do SUMR scholars do?

• Work on paid research projects with Penn faculty mentors
• Hear about graduate school opportunities
• Participate in 6-month online GRE prep program
• Attend week-long orientation and 20 seminars with Penn faculty
• Attend academic conferences
• Participate in a 8-week critical writing program
• Present research at End of SUMR Symposium

Qualifications

Who is eligible?

• Program participants should have an interest in health care and strong quantitative skills.
• Prospective participants do not have to make a commitment in advance to attend graduate school to be accepted into the program, but an academic or research career should be something they are considering. A committee of Penn faculty selects each year's SUMR scholars from the highly competitive applicant pool.

Application Instructions

Interfolio/Dossier is the platform through which you will upload various parts of your application and allow you to track the progress of your application to SUMR. If you have not already signed into or created your Interfolio/Dossier account, use this link to do so now: https://account.interfolio.com/login. (If you are creating a new Dossier account, make sure to select the free option).

In addition to the application form, we also require:

• A resume
• An unofficial college transcript
• Two confidential letters of recommendation

The deadline is February 2, 2026. All parts of your application must be submitted by 11:59pm on February 2nd.

Upload your unofficial college transcript and resume to Dossier.

To request letters of recommendation through Dossier, go to the Letters tab. In the upper right corner, click on "Request a Letter" and fill out the contact information for your two references (you may have to "Add New Contact" for each of the references).

• Make sure you request a confidential letter or evaluation.
• As mentioned above, the official deadline for applications has been extended to February 2, 2026. You will be asked to set a due date for your recommenders to send in their reference letters. We recommend that you request for your letters to be submitted at least a month before the actual deadline to be sure that all parts of your application are complete before February 2nd.
• It may be helpful to provide this link to the SUMR website in your description https://ldi.upenn.edu/education/penn-ldi-training-programs/sumr/.
• In your message to the recommender, you may want to reinforce that the letters of should address something important about you, including a description of your academic and personal characteristics, especially related research aptitude.

You are responsible for ensuring that your application is complete by February 2, 2026.

To apply, visit https://apply.interfolio.com/174349

Location: Philadelphia, PA
Open Date: Oct 15, 2025
Deadline: Feb 02, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time