AI/ML Research Intern - PHD Level - Remote

Requisition Number: 2314042
Internships at Optum. If you want an intern experience that will dramatically shape your career, consider a company that's dramatically shaping our entire health care system. Optum, part of the UnitedHealth Group family of companies, is a leading health services and innovation company dedicated to helping make the health system work better for everyone. With more than 94,000 people collaborating worldwide, Optum combines people, technology, data and action to improve the delivery, quality and efficiency of health care. Our internship opportunities provide a view of a rapidly evolving, incredibly challenging marketplace of ideas, products and services. Here, you'll work with some of the smartest people in the business on assignments that matter. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together
Optum AI is expanding and seeking Research Interns for Summer 2026 who are interested in advancing the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning and developing novel solutions that improve healthcare outcomes. We encourage individuals who are passionate about advancing the state of the art in deep learning, natural language processing, generative models, reinforcement learning, signal processing, privacy-preserving machine learning, causal inference and related areas to apply. Our team works on the state-of-the-art machine learning in health and has close ties to academia, including collaborations with world experts from UCLA, NYU, and others.
Optum AI is UnitedHealth Group's enterprise AI team. We are AI/ML scientists and engineers with deep expertise in AI/ML engineering for health care. We develop AI/ML solutions for the highest impact opportunities across UnitedHealth Group businesses including UnitedHealthcare, Optum Financial, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. In addition to transforming the health care journey through responsible AI/ML innovation, our charter also includes developing and supporting an enterprise AI/ML development platform.
Optum AI team members:

• Have impact at scale: We have the data and resources to make an impact at scale. When our solutions are deployed, they have the potential to make health care system work better for everyone
• Do ground-breaking work: Many of our current projects involve cutting edge ML, NLP and LLM techniques. Generative AI methods for working with structured and unstructured health care data are continuously being developed and improved. We are working in one of the most important frontiers of AI/ML research and development
• Partner with world-class experts on innovative solutions: Our team members are developing novel AI/ML solutions to business challenges. In some cases, this includes the opportunity to file patents and publish papers about the methods we develop. We also collaborate with AI/ML researchers at some of the world's top universities

Some topics you might work on include:

• State of the art foundation models for clinical text utilizing UHG's unique data
• LLM-based screening for clinical trials using patient notes
• Predicting disease onset and progression and quantifying uncertainty from multimodal data
• Next generation named entity recognition systems for clinical text
• Generative AI for statistical and causal reasoning
• Multimodal Foundational Models, especially Using Wearables and "Nearables", in Data-Scarce scenarios.
• Explainable AI for Deep learning models

You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Perform research which advances the state of the art in AI and ML
• Implement algorithms and evaluate their performance on healthcare data
• Communicate results across an interdisciplinary team and explore use cases which improve real world healthcare outcomes
• Document research internally and externally, including publications in machine learning and other scientific conferences and journals

You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:

• Currently enrolled in a PhD degree program with a concentration in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, computer science, statistics, biomedical informatics or a related field
• Experience implementing and training machine learning algorithms or statistical analysis
• Deep understanding of the mathematical foundations of machine learning
• Familiarity with various deep learning frameworks like PyTorch, Tensorflow etc.
• Programming competence in Python, R, Java, C++, Matlab or another modern programming language
• Legally authorized to work in the US without any restrictions. Proof will be required
• Must be eligible to work in the U.S. without company sponsorship

Preferred Qualifications:

• Will be completing PhD degree within 1-2 years
• First author publications in NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AISTATS, UAI, AAAI, KDD, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ACL or other computer science conferences or medical journals
• Experience working in an interdisciplinary environment, particularly across engineering and medicine
• Software tool development experience: source control (git), packaging, documentation
• Knowledge and experience working with genomic data, wearables or with medical records data
• Demonstrated ability to work in a team
• Proven solid spoken and written communication skills

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The hourly pay for this role will range from $40.00 to $60.00 per hour based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.
UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.
UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.