The Regional Introduction to Plasma Physics (RIPP) is a 9-week summer internship program for undergraduate students enrolled at institutions across the southeastern U.S. (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico).

The ultimate goal of the program is to promote long-term relationships between students in the southeastern U.S. with investigators in Alabama. RIPP students will become involved in a summer research project at an FTPP institution for nine weeks. The program will also involve an intensive one-week online training activity participating in lectures, laboratory experiments, and short classes in plasma science given by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). This week will take place concurrently with the Department of Energy (DOE) Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program. In this way, RIPP students will be part of a larger, national plasma science student cohort, learn about opportunities in plasma science, and be exposed to the research environment of the national laboratory for plasma physics.

• Applicants must be an undergraduate student enrolled full-time in a higher education institution in the southeastern U.S (in a state that is part of NSF EPSCoR), which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
• Applicants must be pursuing a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field.
• Applicants must be rising juniors or seniors. Applicants graduating before the internship are not eligible to apply unless they have accepted an offer to become graduate students at an FTPP institution. Freshmen applicants are ineligible.
• Applicants must have a cumulative GPA of 2.75 or higher.
• Applicants must be 19 years of age by the start date of the appointment.
• Interns must have health insurance coverage during the internship.
• Some projects require US citizenship, this will be indicated in the project description PDF.