Paid Summer Research Internships

When: 6-8 weeks over the summer (start date flexible within the period of mid-June to end of July).

Pay: Approximately £25 an hour, 35 hours a week.

What you’ll gain: Research experience, potential publication, mentorship, insight into PhD research.

What we’re looking for: Year 1, 2 or 3 (going into 4) undergraduates, with strong programming background, and genuine interest in exploring open questions — digging into problems that don't have known solutions, and experimenting with new ideas.

Some of the topics we might work on include (but are not limited to) the following:

• "Can LLM agents hunt bugs autonomously?" — Building AI agents that can explore codebases and generate tests to reveal difficult-to-find bugs.
• "Building guardrails for AI code generation" — Techniques to verify and validate that LLM outputs are safe before they reach production.
• "Can LLMs generate better mutants than random changes?" — Developers sometimes introduce deliberate bugs (code mutants) to see if their tests catch them. Can LLMs generate more useful, realistic mutants?

You'll work closely with me and members of my research group, including PhD students and postdocs working on related problems. This gives you both structured mentorship and insight into what PhD life is really like.

How to apply: Send a personal statement of interest (1-2 paragraphs) to p.mcminn@sheffield.ac.uk. Briefly describe what sorts of topics you’d be interested in and why. CV optional. Please use subject line: "Summer Research Internship Application".

Deadline: Monday 9th March.