Data Scientist Intern

About INOVIO

INOVIO is a biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing DNA medicines to help treat and protect people from HPV-related diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases. INOVIO’s technology optimizes the design and delivery of innovative DNA medicines that teach the body to manufacture its own disease-fighting tools. For more information, visit www.inovio.com. 

Job summary

The Quality Data Science Intern will support INOVIO’s Quality Metrics, Manufacturing Metrics, and Management Review automation project by helping organize data sources, build Power BI dashboards, establish data relationships, and improve the structure of data collection for quality, manufacturing, and production-environment metrics.

This role will work cross-functionally with Quality, Manufacturing, Engineering, and other data owners to transform manually collected Excel-based data and system exports into more reliable, scalable, and automated reporting tools. The intern will help connect and structure data from sources such as Excel spreadsheets, MasterControl reports/exports, Microsoft Dynamics AXP or other operational systems, and databases to support Power BI dashboards and trend analysis.

The successful candidate should be technically capable, data-driven, detail-oriented, and comfortable working with incomplete or inconsistent data sets. This position is well suited for a student or early-career candidate with experience or coursework in data analytics, data science, information systems, industrial engineering, statistics, computer science, or a related technical field.

Essential job functions and duties

• Work with Quality, Manufacturing, and other data owners to understand current KPI and metric reporting needs, source data, data definitions, and reporting gaps.
• Support development of Power BI dashboards for quality, manufacturing, supplier, equipment, audit, training, complaint, and production-environment metrics.
• Establish and maintain data relationships between Excel files, MasterControl exports or reports, Microsoft Dynamics AXP or other operational system data, databases, and Power BI datasets.
• Assist with mapping data fields from source systems to dashboard requirements, including KPI name, definition, calculation logic, data source, owner, reporting cadence, filters, and visualization needs.
• Clean, organize, validate, and transform data to support accurate and reliable Power BI reporting.
• Create repeatable data import, transformation, and refresh processes to reduce manual Excel work and improve reporting consistency.
• Support baseline and threshold analysis by organizing historical data and preparing datasets for statistical evaluation.
• Help identify data integrity issues, missing fields, inconsistent naming conventions, duplicate records, and opportunities to improve data collection templates or database structure.
• Collaborate with Quality and Manufacturing team members to ensure dashboards are practical, understandable, and aligned with business and compliance needs.
• Support other quality metrics, data analytics, dashboarding, and process improvement activities as assigned.

Minimum requirements

• Current enrollment in, or recent completion of, a bachelor’s or master’s degree program in Data Science, Computer Science, Information Systems, Statistics, Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Business Analytics, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience with Power BI, including creation of charts, dashboards, data models, relationships, slicers, and visual reports.
• Strong Microsoft Excel skills, including formulas, tables, pivot tables, data cleanup, and structured datasets.
• Basic understanding of relational data concepts, including tables, keys, relationships, joins, and data normalization.
• Ability to work with multiple data sources and organize inconsistent or incomplete data into usable reporting structures.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to identify data quality issues.
• Ability to communicate clearly with technical and non-technical data owners.
• Ability to work independently on assigned tasks while seeking guidance when source data, requirements, and/or assumptions are unclear.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred requirements

• Experience with Power Query, DAX, SQL, Microsoft Access, SharePoint Lists, Dataverse, or other database/data transformation tools.
• Experience connecting Power BI to Excel, SharePoint, databases, exported system reports, or enterprise applications.
• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics AXP or similar ERP/manufacturing data systems is desired but not required.
• Familiarity with MasterControl, eQMS systems, manufacturing systems, environmental monitoring systems, or similar regulated-data platforms.
• Coursework or experience in statistics, SPC, process monitoring, control charts, Pareto analysis, regression, or data visualization.
• Experience building dashboards for manufacturing, quality, operations, laboratory, or regulated-industry data.
• Familiarity with medical device, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or other regulated environments.