The last year has taught most of us working today lessons usually learned over many years on the job, such as the importance of adaptability, the need to pick up new skills, and the courage to leap at opportunities when you see them.
23andMe’s new class of summer interns are taking those lessons and running with them. The pandemic put our intern program on temporary hiatus last year. But when we reopened the program this year, each of the interns we brought on for the summer jumped at the chance. They’ve adapted to the need to work remotely, and are learning new skills over Zoom and Slack.
This marks the fourth year of the program, and the class of interns will be working across the company in departments ranging from communications to research, to product development, security, engineering, and therapeutics. We’re fortunate to attract talented people from across the country, some still in school, some fresh out of school, and others making career changes. 23andMe believes in developing young talent and we benefit from having a diverse class of interns with new ideas and energy invigorating what we do every day. We welcome them to our gene pool.
Read on to learn more about this year’s class of interns. We’ll have a second batch of interns in part two of this post coming a little later this summer.
If you want to learn more about our intern program, check out the 23andMe Careers page. We’ll be posting more details about the program in the fall when we begin recruiting for the next class of interns. If you still have questions email internships@23andme.com.
Mark McAdam
Secure AWS Intern
Mark understands that privacy and security are absolutely paramount in today’s world. He looks forward to applying the same strict standards of protection and information security that he worked with while serving in the United States Navy to his role in the Secure AWS department.
Henri Garrison-Desany
Biostatistician Intern
Henri investigates the intersection of the socioenvironmental and genomic underpinnings of disease and disorders within historically marginalized communities. Henri’s prior work centered on biostatistical investigations of gender and socioeconomic position, and the associations with epigenetic mechanisms of behavioral health disorders. He’ll work on the Genetic Epidemiology team to understand the trends and health outcomes of the millions of people participating in 23andMe research.
Melanie Maurer
Product Science Content Intern
Melanie is passionate about genetic disorders and science communication, and as such, is working on a PhD studying a type of genetic heart disease and loves doing science outreach in her free time. She’s excited to join the Product Science team as an intern and do the product development for a new polygenic risk score.
April Orozco
Environmental Health and Safety Specialist Intern
With a background in Public health, April is dedicated to the health and safety of everyone at 23andMe and the community at large. She’s eager to absorb insights and passion from those she’ be working with, and she’s excited to start her path in Environmental Health and Safety knowing that creating a safe work environment will allow 23andMe’s science to thrive.
Cailyn Schiltz
Internal Communications Intern
Cailyn will be 23andMe’s Internal Communications Intern this summer. She loves teamwork and collaboration, and admires the culture of trust and individuality at 23andMe. She is looking forward to centering those values and using her experience with journalism and public relations to facilitate transitions back to a new normal.
Cooper McAllister
User Experience Research Intern
Cooper is passionate about understanding and advocating for the user when it comes to digital products. His background is in user research and psychological research. Cooper said he’s thrilled about joining the User Experience Research group, and he’s looking forward to exploring projects that help put the user at the center of the 23andMe experience.
Lauren Cueto
Healthcare Operations Intern
Lauren is delighted about working with the Healthcare Operations team. With a deep interest in public health, Lauren is fascinated by the intersection of racial disparities and chronic disease. She’s excited to look at those issues through the lens of public health and biology. She can’t wait to continue exploring this field at 23andMe.
Qiaolan Deng
R&D Scientist Intern, Risk Prediction Modeling
Qiaolan’s research focuses on statistical genetics. He develops and applies statistical methods to identify risky genes associated with human diseases and cancer. He is an R&D Scientist Intern this summer and aims to build and improve prediction models for genes.
Tye Porter
iOS Engineering Intern
Tye is a Junior Software Developer interested in building user-friendly data-driven applications and software tools that people find intuitive and reliable. He is excited to join the iOS team to help solve challenging engineering problems and to design delightful customer-facing features.
Enyonam Odoom
Healthcare Operations Intern
Enyonam is a researcher interested in creating equitable healthcare experiences for underserved communities around the world. She has worked in various parts of the US healthcare system, from direct patient care to research. She’s excited to join the Healthcare Operations team this summer and looking forward to contributing to advancing patient health.
Zach Schapiro
Legal Intern
Zach is passionate about data privacy and giving consumers control over their sensitive personal information. He is very excited to be joining 23andMe’s Privacy team within the legal department to empower consumers and help safeguard their genetic data.
Alix Henderson
Office of the CEO, Archive Intern
Alix found a passion for archiving early into her work experience at an art research library. She became especially impressed with how archival practices could be utilized by varying fields, companies, and institutions. Alix enjoys archiving not only for its organizational purposes but for the educational opportunities it creates as well. She is eager to join the 23andme team as an Archives Intern for the Office of the CEO, where she will establish an archive with components of the company’s history.
Sotiris Karagounis
Data Science Intern
Sotiris is interested in modeling challenging problems through statistics, and applying machine learning to health data. He’s excited to work as a Data Science Intern this summer, aiding teams in making meaningful data-driven decisions
Yassi Xiong
Business Analyst Intern
Yassi is passionate about the intersections of mathematics, operations, supply chain, and business strategy. With experience in product management and consulting, she is delighted to be joining the supply chain organization as a strategic sourcing business analyst. She is excited to lay foundational work for long-term organic growth and collect market insights.
LaMeisha Dubose
Compliance Intern
LaMeisha has a passion for problem solving and implementation. She’s spent her time immersed in the never-ending discovery of compliance, and she’s excited to be joining the compliance and Security team.
Tarek Abdelmotaleb
Enterprise Security Intern
Tarek is very passionate about Exploit development and writing security tools ( Python/C++), and shell coding. In his free time, he likes to discover new Antivirus and Firewalls evasion techniques and discover security vulnerabilities.
Alan Aw
Statistical Geneticist Intern
Alan is interested in developing statistical and computationally tractable methods to serve the needs of geneticists. He is joining the Statistical Genetics Group in Genomics R&D to help improve the GWAS summary statistics imputation pipeline.
Roslyn Curry
Historical Genomes Research Intern
Roslyn is interested in exploring the genetic predisposition to metabolic disease in Native Americans and other communities underrepresented in research. She is very excited to be joining as a Historical Genomes Research Intern.
Ayanna Ajilore
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Intern
Throughout Ayanna’s professional career as an engineer, she constantly found herself in DEI roles and grew a particular fondness for the profession. Her favorite aspect about working in DEI is how it allows her to meet people from various walks of life and learn about their unique experiences in the workplace. She is excited to join the DEI Team and is looking forward to helping grow 23andMe’s diverse culture and establishing a more inclusive workplace.