HS-STEM Career Development Program

Possible Locations/Experiences for Year of Service

There are several ways to complete the year of service requirement for this fellowship, including the following:

  1. Accept full-time employment at a DHS-approved facility following graduation and use your first year of work to meet the requirement (this could be a post-doc position as well).
  2. If you have a Research Assistantship on campus for 20 hours/week for two or more years, your research experience can be used to meet this requirement (as long as the research is approved by VACCINE and is related to visual analytics/Homeland Security).
  3. Complete a series of internships and/or research experiences during your time at Purdue that make up 12 months—could be a summer internship for three months and several other research experiences that will total one year.

Locations for Year of Service

The link below lists the national and federal laboratories and research centers (including the Centers of Excellence, such as VACCINE) where the year of service may be performed.

http://www.dhs.gov/files/labs/scitech.shtm

In addition, past HS-STEM students have completed at least part of their year of service requirement in the following locations:

  • IL State Dept. of Health
  • Emory Vaccine Center
  • National Defense University
  • Rand Corp.
  • Lockheed Martin

If you have an idea of where you would like to complete your service requirement and it is not one of the national or federal sites listed above, talk with the Program Manager for the HS-STEM Program (in the VACCINE office in 226 Potter) to see if the location you have in mind can be approved prior to your assignment. You will need to provide information regarding the experience and how it will relate to homeland security. All students complete a final report outlining their overall experience with the program and their year of service, which is submitted to DHS at the completion of the program.