The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is seeking to identify public health laboratories with existing internship programs. The purpose is to support the development of the public health laboratory workforce as part of the Workforce Pipeline Project funded by the American Rescue Plan.

Public health laboratories with internship programs (host lab) will be supported via subawards. The host lab will provide all supervision and management of the interns. Interns will be supervised by a mentor in a variety of high-value scientific tasks as appropriate and approved in their host lab. Tasks range from pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytic to include specimen receiving, bench work, data analysis, report writing, laboratory maintenance and professional development efforts.

Host labs will provide a monthly detail of the intern hours worked and a brief reporting of activities completed by the intern. Reports will be submitted to the Manager of Internships. Each selected site will be eligible for the award amount of up to $12,800 dollars for one intern for 16 weeks or any other period at a rate of $20 per hour paid to the intern.

Eligibility

All state, local and territorial public health laboratories as well as non-federal environmental, chemical, agricultural, veterinary, and food safety laboratories may apply to host APHL interns.​

RFP Schedule

​Program Dates: July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023

May 27, 2022 – RFP Issued

May 27, 2022 – Technical Assistance Webinar at 11:00 am ET

May 30, 2022 – RFP responses will be assessed on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted

June 1, 2022 – Awardees notified continuously

July 1, 2022 – Anticipated contract ratification between APHL and awardees on a rolling basis

April 30, 2023 – Last day to submit an application for the July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023 fiscal year

NOTE: Funding begins July 1, 2022. Applications will be accepted, reviewed and funded until funds are exhausted. Applications will close 60 days prior to the end of the program (April 30, 2023). If the program funds are fully exhausted prior to April 30, 2023, updates on program closure can be found on APHL’s procurement website (www.aphl.org/rfp) and via an email blast to the APHL programs and the public health laboratories.​

RFP Amendment

Amended: September 15, 2022  

  • Language has been updated to reflect that this is a stipend, not an hourly rate. See: Award section  
  • Details added to Conditions of Award Acceptance including information about indirect cost rates and scheduling a "1:1 Meet and Greet" with APHL Internship Staff 
  • Additional activities added to Applicant Questions #3 including pipetting, gram staining, making laboratory solutions, aseptic technique, laboratory testing, data entry, quality improvement, data analysis, and reporting management 
  • Various grammatical and sentence fluency updates  

Response Submittal 

Applications can be submitted between 11:59 pm ET on May 30, 2022 and April 30, 2023. Microsoft Word or PDF submissions can be sent to internships@aphl.org. APHL will send an email acknowledging the receipt of your application. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within 48 hours, email internships@aphl.org to confirm receipt.​

Materials​

The official RFP document will provide detailed information in regards to this request, please read it in its entirety.

​Questions

Please direct all questions to internships@aphl.org​. Questions received and associated responses will be posted to APHL’s procurement website (www.aphl.org/rfp​).​