Summer Internship Spotlight: Sam Stein (B’27), Pfizer

Each year, our students spend their summers in Washington, D.C., across the nation, and around the world working in corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations. Meet a few of our graduate and undergraduate students in our Summer Internship Spotlight series.

Combining her interest in pharmaceutical research with her business education, Sam Stein (B’27) spent the summer interning at Pfizer. Here, she shares insights into the impactful projects she worked on, key lessons learned, and advice for making the most out of your internship experience.

Tell us about your internship.

I was hired by Pfizer as a research and development intern back in February, earning a spot in the Pfizer Futures Program. Later on, my role evolved to specifically support the Medical and Safety organizations under Pfizer’s Chief Medical Office (CMO). I reported to the New York City headquarters, housed in The Spiral in Hudson Yards!

How did your internship relate to your professional or personal interests? 

I was drawn to the research aspect of the role, but I was not as interested in the development side. Last summer, I had the opportunity to conduct independent research through McDonough’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and learned so much from the process. While this research focused on socially responsible marketing and finance, I was excited by the challenge of pharmaceutical research and the opportunity to build on my research skills, especially by implementing methods in statistics and data analytics to assess real-world results.

How did you find your internship? 

I came across the job posting on a lesser-known job site called WayUp in November. I was introduced to WayUp at the time by a resource from the Georgetown Startup Internship Seminar.

What is the most interesting or impactful thing you worked on during your internship?

For one of my assignments, I collaborated with colleagues who manage the disclosure of clinical trials. I loved contributing my data visualization knowledge by creating interactive dashboards on a previously unfamiliar platform, Spotfire, for workload forecasting and compliance purposes. The compliance due dates involved further segmentation by activity step, like registering the study and posting either initial or final results, which reinforced my new understanding of the drug development cycle. Also, I generally prefer to handle perfect data inputs, but the work was more interesting to me when it required questioning the validity and accuracy of the analysis, followed by working with colleagues who manage the data to clean inconsistencies.

What did a typical day look like? 

One thing I loved about the internship was how quickly we were integrated into everyday life at Pfizer. I did most things a full-time colleague does, plus career development programming, fireside chats, and department-specific workshops to learn about the drug development cycle, for example. Most often, I was meeting with my managers and their teams to advance the three projects I worked on, the other two belonging to the medical organization’s Project Management Office.

What advice do you have for other students when it comes to internships?

Students should consider roles in industries outside those traditionally associated with their major! For example, the business side of science is a great field to combine passions in a high-impact role. These cross-functional dynamics exist within most companies. My internship was also nothing like I expected, for the better. I kept imagining myself in a lab coat ruining an experiment, but I found myself ahead of peers studying STEM when our assignments were more based in project management or data analytics. Recruiters may prefer interest over experience or know something you don’t about the responsibilities, so take a chance on a role that excites you.