This summer I interned at the Office of Global Research (OGR) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in NIH. OGR is responsible for coordinating and maintaining international biomedical research collaborations to advance global health. In this role I wrote a white paper and gave a presentation with recommendations for areas of collaboration between the United States and Taiwan, worked on a project to centralize information on international platforms within NIH to streamline the grants application process, prepared briefing reports for congressional delegations to Thailand, Vietnam, and China, and helped to organize and attend delegation visits and international conferences.

I found the experience to be incredibly rewarding in giving me insight into the grants application process and both the considerations and the barriers to fostering successful collaborations with different countries. I had the opportunity to work with many different people within the office and speak from many more around NIH. Finally, DC is a fantastic city and really a wonderful place to spend the summer as an intern.