Intern — Knowledge Discovery & Data Science

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Advanced Intelligence

How would you like a career where you get to use your best analytical skills to make a substantial difference in the well-being of people across the globe? Bring your skills and talents to Lilly and our Advanced Analytics and Data Sciences organization where you’ll have the opportunity to make an impact on the lives of patients.

As an innovation driven company, we work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism.

Our Advanced Analytical and Data Sciences organization is growing to support the entire Lilly enterprise, from Discovery to Development to Manufacturing and Commercialization of our medicines. To solve the complex problems of a global business and the ever-evolving data and analytics landscape, the organization generally requires advanced degrees in statistics, mathematics, econometrics, operations research and computer science. We are playing a leading role in transforming the way the company discovers and develops new treatments, identifies personalized treatment regimens, drives efficiency in our operations and optimizes our commercialization of new products. We are doing this with an emphasis in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence, natural language processing and other approaches to unstructured data, advanced mathematical and predictive modelling, visual analytics and more.

Whether you are intrigued by the research and development of new medicines or optimizing our commercialization/business, or driving efficiency into our operations, we have a position for you. You will be encouraged to identify important business problems and to further your own research interests in these areas including presentations and publications at professional meetings. Come join us on our amazing journey to make life better!

About This Role

This internship is designed for candidates who combine strong technical foundations with the ability to work through open-ended, ambiguous problems. You will be embedded within our AI team, contributing to a defined initiative that spans research, experimentation, and structured synthesis.

We are looking for a Research Intern (Knowledge Discovery & Data Science) to the work that sits at the intersection of data science methodology, Knowledge discovery, representation learning, and intelligent decision systems. Work on research-grade problems with real-world ambiguity. You will operate with meaningful independence, engage with internal team across functions, and produce deliverables that inform real decisions.

What You Will Do

Research & Landscape Mapping

Survey existing approaches, methodologies, and tools relevant to the problem space. Identify gaps and extract transferable practices from comparable initiatives.

Data Sourcing & Pipeline Work

Identify and access relevant data sources. Build lightweight scripts or pipelines to extract, clean, and structure data for downstream analysis.

Modelling & Experimentation

Apply appropriate DL, or statistical techniques. Iterate on approaches, document findings rigorously, and interpret results in context.

Framework & Synthesis

Translate analytical findings into a structured framework or recommendation set that the team can act on or build from.

Stakeholder Engagement

Participate in working sessions with domain experts and team leads. Incorporate qualitative input alongside quantitative findings to sharpen outputs.

Documentation & Presentation

Produce clear written deliverables and present findings to a mixed technical and business audience at the close of the internship.

Mandatory Skills & Background

Academic Background

• Currently enrolled in or recently completed a PhD or M.Tech in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Strong grounding in machine learning, statistical modelling, or a related quantitative area.
• Demonstrated ability to define, lead, and execute challenging research projects independently.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Strong technical knowledge of statistics, machine learning, and state-of-the-art deep learning for text and graph-based problems.
• Proven experience with NLP, data mining and knowledge discovery including training, and evaluating deep learning and large language model variants.
• Ability to work in core areas like: Representation learning, Probabilistic modelling, Data mining techniques
• Familiarity with at least some of: Graph-based learning (GNNs, NetworkX, DGL, PyG), Causal inference (DoWhy, EconML, causal graphs)
• Strong computer science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, and problem-solving, implemented in Python.
• Experience using cloud platforms or high performance compute resources for model development and deployment
• Demonstrated ability to work on cutting-edge research.
• Contribute to research papers, patents, or internal knowledge assets

General Guidelines

• Deliverable-first: The internship is scoped around a defined primary output. Prioritise work that advances that deliverable over open-ended exploration.
• Iterate visibly: Prefer short working cycles with checkpoints over long silent stretches. Document decisions, dead ends, and reasoning — not just results.
• Engage early: Internal domain experts are accessible. Use them to sharpen problem framing from the start, not just to validate final outputs.
• Rigour over volume: A well-reasoned, clearly scoped analysis is valued over exhaustive breadth. Quality of thinking matters more than quantity of output.
• Confidentiality: All data and work products are confidential. Comply with organisational data handling policies and clarify access requirements upfront.
• Close with impact: The engagement concludes with a structured presentation to team leadership. Plan your arc from week one so the final briefing reflects the full journey.

Additional Information

• Make the impossible possible in your quest to make life better.
• Bring Analytics to life by giving it zeal and making it applicable to our business.
• Know, learn, and keep up to date on the analytical, computational, and scientific advances to maximise your impact.
• Bring an insatiable desire to learn, to innovate, and to challenge yourself for the benefit of patients.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.