Fusion Energy Internships and Co-ops: Where to Apply in 2026

If you're a student interested in fusion energy, an internship or co-op is the single most effective way to get your foot in the door. Fusion is a small enough industry that the people you work with during a summer placement may be the same people hiring you full-time two years later. And with the industry expanding as rapidly as it is, companies are investing heavily in building their talent pipelines through intern programs.

Here's where to find fusion internships, what to expect, and how to make the most of them.

Private Fusion Companies With Intern Programs

The leading private fusion companies are increasingly running structured internship and co-op programs. These offer the chance to work on real engineering and research problems — not make-work — in a fast-paced startup environment.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) — Based in Devens, MA, CFS runs both summer internships and semester-long co-ops across engineering, physics, and operations. Their postings include roles like "Intern - Cryogenics Engineer" and other discipline-specific placements. CFS is building SPARC, their net-energy tokamak, which means interns get exposure to hardware that's actually being constructed — not just simulations.

Helion Energy — Located in Everett, WA, Helion hires interns across engineering and operations. Given Helion's aggressive timeline toward building a commercial fusion power plant, intern projects here tend to be hands-on and directly tied to their core technology development.

Thea Energy — This stellarator company offers summer internships across physics and engineering disciplines. Their smaller team size means interns typically get more direct mentorship and exposure to a wider range of work.

Marathon Fusion — Offers optical diagnostics internships and other technical placements for students with relevant physics backgrounds.

General Fusion — Based in Vancouver, BC, General Fusion partners with Canadian universities for co-op and internship programs, with a focus on engineering and physics roles.

New intern positions appear regularly as the industry grows. The best approach is to check company career pages starting in September/October for summer placements, and to monitor fusion job boards where internship postings appear alongside full-time roles.

National Laboratory Internships

National labs are the traditional training ground for fusion scientists and engineers, and their internship programs are well-established and well-funded.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) — Offers the National Undergraduate Fellowship Program and Summer Research Experience, placing students directly in fusion research projects. This is one of the most prestigious placements for aspiring fusion physicists.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) — The Fusion Energy Division hosts interns working on topics from plasma boundary modeling to materials science. ORNL participates in the DOE's Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) — Offers student internships related to inertial confinement fusion and the National Ignition Facility (NIF). These placements are particularly relevant for students interested in laser-driven fusion approaches.

MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) — While technically a university lab, PSFC hosts undergraduate and graduate research assistants who work alongside CFS-affiliated researchers. The proximity to CFS creates a unique pipeline from academic research to private-sector fusion.

DOE SULI Program — The Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program places students at national labs across the DOE complex, including fusion-specific facilities. Applications typically open in the fall for summer placements. This is a funded program — housing and travel stipends are included.

International Opportunities

Fusion is a global endeavor, and international internships can be career-defining experiences.

ITER (France) — The world's largest fusion experiment runs an annual internship program, placing students in engineering, physics, and administrative roles at the construction site in Cadarache, France. ITER internships are highly competitive but offer unparalleled exposure to international megaproject engineering.

FuseNet (European Fusion Education Network) — Coordinates internships and master's thesis projects across European fusion labs, including positions at the Swiss Plasma Center (EPFL), Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, and other leading institutions.

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) — Offers graduate and internship programs at their Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, home to the JET and MAST-U tokamaks.

What Makes a Competitive Applicant

Fusion internships are competitive — these aren't generic engineering placements. Here's what hiring managers look for:

Relevant coursework. For physics internships: electromagnetism, plasma physics (if offered), statistical mechanics, computational physics. For engineering internships: thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, control systems, materials science. Coursework in Python, MATLAB, or other computational tools is valuable across all roles.

Lab or research experience. Any hands-on research experience — even if it's not in fusion — signals that you can work in a real lab environment. Undergraduate research assistantships, senior capstone projects, and independent studies all count.

Demonstrated interest in fusion. This sounds soft, but it matters. Read papers, follow fusion news, attend talks or webinars, and articulate why you want to work in fusion specifically — not just clean energy in general. Hiring managers can tell the difference between someone who applied to every energy internship available and someone who specifically chose fusion.

Technical skills. Depending on the role: CAD (SolidWorks, Siemens NX), programming (Python, C++, MATLAB), simulation tools (COMSOL, ANSYS), data analysis, and familiarity with version control (Git) are all differentiators.

What to Expect During the Internship

Fusion internships — at both companies and labs — tend to be project-based. You'll likely be assigned a specific problem or deliverable and work toward completing it over the course of your placement, with guidance from a mentor. At startups, the pace is fast and the projects are practical. At national labs, the work may be more research-oriented with an emphasis on analysis and publication.

Common intern projects in fusion include: analyzing experimental data from plasma diagnostics, running computational simulations of plasma behavior, designing or testing components for reactor subsystems, developing control algorithms, and characterizing materials under fusion-relevant conditions.

Most programs culminate in a presentation where you share your results with the team or lab. This is your chance to demonstrate your contributions and make an impression on potential future employers.

From Intern to Full-Time

The conversion rate from intern to full-time employee at fusion companies is high relative to other industries. The talent pool is small, training is expensive, and companies would rather hire someone they've already evaluated than start fresh with an unknown candidate. Many current engineers and researchers at leading fusion companies started as interns or co-ops.

Even if a direct conversion doesn't happen, a fusion internship builds your network in a tight-knit industry. The fusion community — especially in the U.S. — is small enough that everyone roughly knows everyone. An internship at PPPL or CFS puts you one or two degrees of connection from virtually every hiring manager in the field.

For more on preparing for a fusion career and understanding what degrees lead to fusion jobs, explore our career guides.

See current internships and entry-level positions. Browse our job board — we list internships alongside full-time roles from companies across the fusion industry.

Last updated: April 2026.