Computational Social Science Intern (Fall 2026 Job Washington area,District of Columbia USA,IT/Tech

Position: Computational Social Science Intern (Fall 2026)

Join Our Talented Team at Protagonist
We fuse rigorous, methodologically sound analysis with our cutting-edge technology platform, Narrative Analytics®. This powerful combination enables us to quantitatively analyze open-source media, deliver strategic recommendations, and craft executive-level communication strategies for clients with missions that matter.

Why Us?Our team is a vibrant mix of communication specialists, data scientists, and subject matter experts with extensive experience across U.S. Government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. By joining Protagonist, you ll immerse yourself in a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, and your contributions truly matter.

What We Do

Innovative Solutions: We co-develop cutting-edge solutions with our clients to address tough communication problems and capitalize on opportunities to make a tangible impact.
Data-Driven Insights: Our tools and methodologies provide actionable insights that help clients meet their communication objectives and stay ahead of global challenges.
Applied Expertise: We integrate our solutions within client organizations, leveraging our profound expertise to address critical issues and ensure sustainable success.

Be Part of Something Bigger
At Protagonist, you ll work on compelling projects that make a real difference. We seek talented individuals eager to contribute to our mission and grow alongside us. If you re passionate about communication, data analysis, and making an impact, we invite you to explore a career with Protagonist.

Explore Your Future with Us!

Washington, DC | Maximum 40 hours/week | In-Office with Remote Opportunities (Fall 2026)

Job Description

You are an analytical thinker with a passion for applying rigorous, modern data science methodologies to real-world challenges. You thrive in ambiguity and bring clarity through structure, insight, and evidence. You understand that data doesn t speak for itself—that the best insights come from combining computational rigor with an understanding of the social, political, and communication dynamics that generate the data in the first place.

You are fluent in the fundamentals of predictive modeling, classification, and natural language processing, and you re eager to grow your skills in a dynamic, collaborative environment. You enjoy working with data from messy sources and turning it into actionable insights for a range of clients. You re driven by curiosity, grounded in social science thinking, and you know how to ask the right questions of data to uncover what matters.

Responsibilities

Data Collection & Preparation

Collect and curate data from a variety of media content aggregators, open-source platforms, and APIs using scripts, scrapers, and automated tools.
Build datasets that are relevant to the customer s project scope and need area.
Use Python, SQL, or similar languages to clean, structure, and transform datasets for analysis.

Applied Machine Learning & NLP

Apply machine learning and natural language processing techniques to large, unstructured text datasets to uncover meaningful patterns and insights.
Implement topic modeling, classification, clustering, and other core NLP/ML workflows aligned with customer analysis needs.
Experiment with and evaluate different models and algorithms, including both traditional statistical approaches and modern AI techniques (e.g., transformer-based models, embeddings, stance detection).

Analytical Design & Research

Contribute to the design and refinement of analytical frameworks and research methodologies that structure how we assess complex information environments.
Help translate social science research questions into computational workflows, bridging theory and applied analysis.

Visualization & Insight Generation

Create visualizations and interactive…