Inspired By Care From CHOP, Micah Sheppard '26 Returns as Research Assistant
Name: Micah Sheppard
Class Year: 2026
Major: Neuroscience
Minor: Sociology
Hometown: Hershey, Pa.
Internship Organization: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Center for Autism Research
Internship Title: Student Research Assistant
Location of Internship: Philadelphia, Pa.
What's happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
This summer I am working for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in their Center for Autism Research (CAR). In this work, I'm aiding in the hospital's efforts to advance our knowledge of autism and its diagnoses. Within CAR, the individual lab I'm working in is doing clinical research on Infant Synchrony. This synchrony is the process of looking at the interactional social exchanges between infants and their caregivers to see how their communication may demonstrate early indications of autism. In our research, we are looking at infants/toddlers who are both at low and high risks of autism. We are aiming to see if features of synchrony early on will help to predict later diagnoses of autism. My individual job is primarily to look at the video data from the research visits of the participants and encode them for errors. I calculate the impacted parts of the video from quality control data editing on a specific software that engineers will later use to match synchrony behaviors between the parent and child. Though some of my day-to-day work isn't the most exciting, it is rewarding to work with passionate researchers and clinicians for advancement in such a demanding field.
CHOP had been a very influential organization in my childhood. For many years, I was able to rely on this hospital for the best care. It has been an honor to learn and be a part of such an influential and caring community!
Why did you apply for this internship?
I applied to this internship because CHOP had been a very influential organization in my childhood. I grew up with a very complicated benign knee tumor and ended up going to CHOP for care. For many years, I was able to rely on this hospital for the best care. I specifically applied to the autism research center because it's an area of research I'm interested in, where I'm able to apply my neuroscience studies to critical needed research and care. This internship was an amazing opportunity because it is right in Philadelphia, so I'm able to live and commute from the Bryn Mawr area. It has been an honor to learn and be a part of such an influential and caring community!
Was there anything special about how you found this internship?
I found this internship by researching and then reaching out to people who were doing research I was interested in at CHOP, since I knew this was an organization I wanted to work with. I ended up finding a fellow Seven Sister School alum who was doing research at CAR! I reached out to her and she was so excited to hear that I was from Bryn Mawr. She recommended the research program I'm in now and gave me advice on how to apply. Definitely one of the many perks of going to Bryn Mawr!
What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn't expect?
One thing that I wasn't expecting from my internship was how friendly and approachable the research staff was going to be! Every person I've worked with or encountered has been very welcoming and encouraging to the other interns and me. I was definitely not expecting my supervisors and other researchers to be so willing to share their career-finding experiences and help me learn about how I can maximize my experience there. They've been very supportive in helping me to network with people in and out of our research lab to find potential careers that may interest me. Their willingness to talk and connect has been a very positive and rewarding process.
Through the Career and Civic Engagement Center Beyond Bryn Mawr Summer Internship Program, Bryn Mawr students pursue opportunities in fields such as nonprofits, government and law, health care, research, sciences, business, and the arts. Thanks to the generosity of our alumnae/i and donors, over 150 students across all academic departments are funded to pursue unpaid internships or research experiences in the U.S. and abroad each year.