Operations Research Intern - Summer 2025 Job Listing at SPA in Alexandria, VA (Job ID 2024-19352)

Description

Qualifications

What we're looking for (required qualifications): to qualify for our summer internship position, you must satisfy the following:

• Actively pursuing a bachelor's or master's degree in engineering, operations research, computer science, mathematics, physics, or an equivalent technical field.
• Coursework or practical experience in manipulating, analyzing, and visualizing data, computer programming, and/or scripting
• Experience in applying analytical methods to address complex problems
• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written
• Experience and comfort working independently and in a collaborative group
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to meet requirements for a DoD Secret security clearance

What will make you stand out (desired qualifications): you will go above and beyond our expectations if you have experience with any of the following software tools, integrated development environments (IDEs), or languages:

• Microsoft Excel
• Visual Studio
• Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• Python
• Microsoft Access databases
• SQL
• MATLAB
• Cameo Systems Modeler/SysML
• Systems Tool Kit (STK)
• R/tidyverse
• Git
• Atlassian software (Bitbucket/Confluence/Jira)

What you'll do (responsibilities): You will use your problem-solving skills and academic background to frame analytic questions, build computer models, run simulations, analyze data, and visualize results relating to defense technologies and their warfighting capability and impact.  You will be expected to work independently and collaboratively with senior analysts who are experts in military operations, policy, and data science.  You will have the opportunity to present your work and findings to team and company leadership.  All the while, you will gain foundational knowledge of defense technologies, unmanned systems, and a collection of other military topics.

In addition to customer support, you will be assigned to projects involving the modeling of the integration of state-of-the-art technologies, host platforms, and capability requirements.  You will research the technologies' intended use, platform integration, requirements, and cost to inform your model development.  You will have the opportunity to learn about and use several different modeling tools and environments.  These models will explore options and existing challenges with integrating new state-of-the-art technologies with existing military aircraft/ships/submarines in activities such as navigation, communications, and data transfer.

Your opportunities: During your internship, you will be submitted to receive and/or maintain a DoD Secret security clearance.  You will gain exposure to our analytic and military communities through luncheons and work interactions, and you will be mentored by senior analysts who have a multitude of experiences in DoD, policy, operations, and data science.  You will model, analyze, and present a project from start to finish.  At the conclusion of your successful internship, you may be considered for part time employment during the school year and/or a full time offer after the completion of your degree program.