Summer Psychometrics & Data Science Intern

2026 NCCPA Summer Internship Program - Please note that this posting is for an internship opportunity for Ph.D. students not an employment opportunity.

About NCCPA:

The National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) is the only nationally recognized certification organization for physician assistants (PAs). Established as a not-for-profit organization in 1974, NCCPA provides certification programs that reflect standards for clinical knowledge, clinical reasoning, and other medical skills and professional behaviors required upon entry into practice and throughout the careers of PAs. All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories rely on NCCPA certification as a criterion for initial licensure or regulation of PAs. More than 200,000 PAs have been certified by NCCPA since 1975. NCCPA is accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies and has been ranked #5 out of 75 small businesses in the metro Atlanta area by the Atlanta Journal Constitution's 2025 Top Workplaces in the Region. To learn more about NCCPA, please visit https://www.nccpa.net/.

Internship Summary:

NCCPA offers an eight-week internship in summer 2026 for students working toward their Ph.D. in psychometrics (or other relevant fields), with at least two years of graduate coursework. This program is scheduled to begin in June and conclude by the end of August. While interns will work remotely, during the first week of the internship, they will work closely with the psychometric team to develop a research plan for the remaining weeks. This initial project development week may be at the NCCPA offices in Johns Creek, GA, conditions permitting. Over the following weeks, interns will convene weekly virtual meetings with their mentor(s) to discuss progress and address questions. All finalized deliverables will be provided to NCCPA after the internship. 

Research projects:

During the program, interns will have the opportunity to gain experience in operational psychometric tasks involved in administering and scoring a certification assessment and to take the lead, in collaboration with psychometric staff, on a research project that supports NCCPA’s exam-related research agenda. Current topics of interest to NCCPA revolve primarily around longitudinal assessment. Specific areas of interest include  

• Adaptive testing, 
• Natural language processing and machine learning projects, 
• Response time modeling, 
• New item type on digital assessments,
• Application of LLMs on Automated item generation, 
• Detecting bias in test content, 
• Detecting compromised test content, 
• Studies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in testing, and 
• Performance Growth modeling on high-stakes exams.

The research effort will include submitting a proposal to NCME, AERA, or a similar conference, culminating in a research paper that can be delivered at a conference. 

 
Application Procedure: A complete application includes a curriculum vitae, a student copy of graduate school transcript (does not need to be an official transcript), two letters of recommendation, and a statement of purpose describing your interest in our internship as well as your interest and qualifications in one or more of our research areas of interest listed above. 

Application materials may be emailed or mailed to NCCPA and must be received by March 1st, 2026.        

NCCPA will announce the recipients of the internship award on March 20th, 2026. 

The award includes an $11,000 stipend. Conference travel will be offset, and travel/lodging for trips to the NCCPA offices will be reimbursed in accordance with NCCPA’s policies. Materials and questions should be submitted to Yanlin Jiang; National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants; 12000 Findley Road, Suite 200; Johns Creek, GA, 30097; Email: yanlinj@nccpa.net.