Materials Science Summer Intern

The Role

As an intern in the Mechanics, Materials, and Process Research Lab at General Motors Research and Development, you will advance computational materials science at continuum length scales. The goal is to speed up the discovery, design, and deployment of materials for next-generation vehicle and manufacturing applications. You will propose new research directions, set technical research plans, and lead collaborative studies that link material composition, microstructure, processing, performance, and engineering requirements.

You will develop and apply continuum-scale models, simulation workflows, and data-driven methods to better understand materials behavior across relevant spatial and temporal scales. Your work will guide experimental research, support efficient materials down-selection, and help turn computational findings into practical materials and manufacturing solutions. You will document and share results through technical reports, external publications, presentations, software or workflow documentation, and invention records.

The Team

This position supports the development of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies for future GM products and processes. The intern will work where continuum-scale simulation, materials discovery, experimental validation, and application-focused engineering meet.

What You'll Do

• Plan and carry out collaborative research in computational materials science, with a focus on continuum-scale materials behavior and materials discovery.
• Develop physics-based models for composition, process, structure, and property relationships, including constitutive behavior, phase evolution, transport, damage, fracture, fatigue, thermal response, and multiphysics phenomena.
• Build and apply continuum and mesoscale simulation methods such as finite-element, phase-field, crystal-plasticity, computational fluid dynamics, reaction-diffusion, cellular automata, or related approaches.
• Combine thermodynamics, kinetics, mechanics, processing science, and materials data into predictive computational workflows.
• Use simulation, high-throughput computation, optimization, and data-driven methods to screen candidate materials, compositions, processing conditions, and architectures.
• Work closely with experimental researchers to define useful experiments, interpret results, quantify uncertainty, and speed up materials down-selection.
• Establish model verification, validation, calibration, uncertainty quantification, and sensitivity analysis practices suited to research and engineering use.
• Connect computational materials insights to manufacturing processes and vehicle-relevant performance requirements.
• Lead internal and external collaborations with GM engineering teams, universities, national laboratories, software developers, and research partners.
• Stay current on the state of the art in continuum mechanics, computational materials science, materials informatics, scientific machine learning, and related fields.
• Prepare timely, high-quality technical reports, presentations, publications, software documentation, and invention disclosures.
• Generate intellectual property to protect new inventions, computational methods, and research results.
• Assist and mentor other employees in reaching project and research goals.

Start Dates

Start dates for this internship are May 24 and June 14, 2027. The role is a full-time, 40 hours per week summer position.

About GM

Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions, and Zero Congestion. We take on the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer, and more equitable for all.