The Georgetown Initiative for Innovation, Development and Evaluation (gui2de) is looking for interns during summer 2025 to support several empirical field-based research projects for approximately 8-10 weeks this summer.  Rising undergraduate juniors and seniors, and rising second-year Masters students are eligible to apply.

The gui2de summer internship program is an experiential internship intended to complement and supplement classroom learning by providing students with the opportunity to work side by side with the field and research teams supporting faculty-led field projects in international development. Students  will contribute to project implementation and management, field logistics, development of project materials, field team training, survey design and programming, and data cleaning and analysis, among other things.  

This is an unpaid position, but the offer is extended with the understanding that you will receive a $3,500 non-service stipend to defray your costs of living. gui2de will also cover the cost of economy round-trip airfare.

To apply, please fill out this google from 

The deadline for applications is Friday March 7, 2025.

Applicants may be asked to participate in several interviews with gui2de staff and faculty. The application form asks for coding and writing samples, but these are not mandatory to apply. They can be taken from classes, professional experiences, or any other context. Please note that the summer internship is an experiential learning opportunity, and there are no prerequisites. We hope that the internship serves as an opportunity for students to learn new skills and continue to strengthen pre existing skills. We are looking for students who are eager to get involved in both the logistical and analytics components of empirical research projects, and who demonstrate strong abilities to work collaboratively with diverse teams, problem-solve, and work with self-direction. No previous international experience is required. 

We will be recruiting a cohort of multiple interns on a wide range of projects. We describe below the projects that are likely to recruit interns this summer. Please note that not all of these projects may end up recruiting interns this summer, as some funding and timeline considerations are sometimes still undecided at the time of posting. Conversely, some last-minute projects may be added to the mix, about which applicants will be informed over email or during the interviews process.

Please contact Béatrice Leydier (bl517@georgetown.edu), WWHGE Research Director at gui2de, with any questions. 

Project Descriptions

STARS Program – Rwanda – Andrew Zeitlin

The project is an adaptive, experimental pathway to scale, utilizing A/B testing to explore alternative design variations for pay-for-performance teacher contracts. This initiative is a collaborative effort with the government and other implementation partners, notably Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA). Building upon a prior RCT conducted in Rwanda, the study’s objective is to develop and assess a viable model for the widespread implementation of learning-outcome-based performance contracts for teachers. 

Interns will engage  in a range of tasks during the endline phase, including student learning data collection and various measurement activities. Interns will need to monitor the digitization and grading processes in the field, and will engage in survey data collection supporting the design and piloting of questionnaires. Interns will also be tasked with conducting data quality checks and data cleaning procedures, as well as contribute to analytical reports. Beyond data-related responsibilities, interns will collaborate with project partners to support additional implementation activities. This may involve coordinating logistics and facilitating communication between different project components. 

Cash Transfers – Kenya – Andrew Zeitlin

You will contribute to a large scale RCT in Nairobi conducted in partnership with GiveDirectly and Equity Bank. It consists of delivering a large unconditional cash transfer along with a financial literacy training to refugees in Nairobi. You may also be involved in the ReBuild Wave2 RCTs, implemented with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Kampala and Nairobi simultaneously, delivering a network-building component in addition to a micro enterprise cash grant for urban refugees and vulnerable hosts.

The GiveDirectly project is in the implementation phase, consisting of active data collection and implementation delivery. The ReBuild project is in its closing phase, and may have some qualitative follow-up components.

Ed-Lab – Tanzania – James Habyarimana

You will work on the What Works Hub for Global Education (WWHGE) project in Tanzania. The WWHGE Program is a large, multi-country research project, funded by the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) with other development partners. The WWHGE program in Tanzania aims to expand the evidence base around education reform and studying the implementation of the national Teacher Continuous Professional Development (TCPD) policy by establishing a Tanzania Institute of Education Lab (TIE-EdLab) that will design and implement research activities in close partnership with the government.

You will work closely with our partners in Tanzania on activities such as

• Collect data to monitor school curriculum deployment through a school phone survey
• Design and implement an adaptive SMS experiment to improve take-up of TCPD policy at the school level
• Analyze take-up and usage data from the adaptive SMS experiment
• Collect administrative data from various government departments
• Monitor and analyze back-end data of the online learning platform of teachers to understand usage patterns and behaviors
• Produce reports and data visualizations for government and research partners

Microinsurance – Philippines – Amrita Kundu

You will be supporting Professor Amrita Kundu on her research into microinsurance projects for small firms in the Philippines. More frequent climate disasters heighten the vulnerability of small firms in developing nations, raising their costs and limiting their growth. Small firms in developing nations struggle with limited resources and thin margins. Disruptions from health or climate disasters like typhoons or floods compound firm survival risk. Tools like microinsurance, disaster loans, cash support, and resilience training can enhance post-disaster recovery for small firms, but their market penetration remains low. Around 500 million small firms operate in developing nations, contributing to over 90% of global employment. The sheer number of vulnerable small firms presents an opportunity to develop tailored health and climate risk management products.

Electric Vehicle Batteries – Bangladesh – Amrita Kundu

This project looks at how private sector interventions, including business model innovations, can increase the life of electric vehicle batteries and incentivize the formal recycling of batteries in developing countries, which can reduce environmental pollution – especially lead poisoning – in these regions. This is an interdisciplinary project with researchers from Georgetown and Stanford Universities, across business, policy and health. External stakeholders include UNCTAD, Pure Earth and the International Lead Association.

Karnataka Governance – India – Bhumi Purohit

How do bureaucrats and politicians coordinate to get policies implemented, and what are the limits to their coordination capacity? This project examines this question in the state of Karnataka, India by collecting individual-level data from primary surveys of village-level politicians and bureaucrats. The research assistant would join the survey firm’s team to oversee data collection, ensure data accuracy, audit survey data, and undertake data cleaning as required. Ideal candidates should have experience with R and/or Stata and SurveyCTO.

Foundational Literacy – South Africa – Jacobus Cilliers

You will contribute to a new project looking at long-term impacts of a foundational literacy program implemented in South Africa, called the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS), which was implemented in 2015-2017, targeting successively grade 1, 2 and 3 classes. Previous research has shown that the initial interventions were effective at improving student literacy (Cilliers et al, 2020). A follow-up study assessed students at the end of grade 7 and found persistence in home language literacy skills, transference of skills to English literacy, and reduction in grade repetition rates (Cillers et al, 2023). This project will continue tracking the same students through the end of their 12th year of school to test for longer-term impacts on school performance, literacy and a broader set of skills, and to examine heterogeneity in long-term impacts.

The summer intern will be based in the South African Department of Basic Education and contribute to survey development and preparation for data collection activities.