Every summer, the School of Computer and Communication Sciences provides internship opportunities as part of the Summer@EPFL program. Places are assigned on merit to students with outstanding academic records. One of these students, Sophie Sigfstead, shares her experience with us from the summer 2025 program.
Where are you from and at which university do you study?
I’m from Edmonton in Canada and I am majoring in maths and computer science at the University of Alberta, so I go to school in my hometown! During my studies, I've focused on machine learning in health, and I was thrilled to take part in Summer@EPFL.
What motivated you to join the Summer@EPFL program?
I know that this is a university where world class research is done, and I'm really interested in pursuing a career in research so, for starters, the school itself attracted me. Then, I specialize in AI applications in medicine and EPFL is a global leader in computational neuroscience, so the opportunity to work with people like Professor Martin Schrimpf, that are at the very cutting-edge of their fields, is like a dream come true. It’s also not just about the research - I think in the summer you want to have an enjoyable time and the opportunity to experience new things. I just totally fell in love with Switzerland - the landscape, the lifestyle and the ease of being able to explore other areas of Europe. Finally, I saw the opportunity as a way to help inform the next step of my journey both exploring EPFL and seeing what it’s like to live in Europe and seeing if that would be a strong fit. I have been able to do research at one of the top institutions in the world and spend three months in a beautiful country making new friends with unique experiences from all over the world.
Which EPFL Lab did you work with and what project did you work on?
I joined the Neuro AI Laboratory with Prof. Martin Schrimpf. His lab specifically focuses on building AI models that match human behavior to ultimately better understand how the human brain works. I was specifically working on an applications project trying to tackle schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a very understudied, underfunded disease and understanding better how the disease manifests is key to improving treatments in these populations. We focused on applying auditory models to better model schizophrenia - the human brain obviously responds to sounds and the auditory environment and my project was focused on building an AI model that can capture how a healthy brain responds to sound and then potentially modifying that model to induce schizophrenia-like changes. The hope is that by doing this kind of modeling, we could either subtype the condition better or guide more tailored treatments for people with schizophrenia.
What’s the key experience you will take home with you?
I think it's really hard to pick just one because basically every single weekend I've done something with other interns – travel, museums, hiking in the Alps! On the research side it was just a few weeks into my time here and we were sitting on the beach down by the lake talking about big ideas for the lab. It was warm and sunny, we had pizza and we were playing games and swimming, and it was one of those experiences where you're like, wow, this is so cool. Like me, all these people are really passionate about research and it was a bit of a ‘pinch myself’ moment. I have a huge passion for research - I was already loving that in the lab and then all this just supplemented my life outside of study and work.
The Summer@EPFL 2026 application site is now open! To apply, please visit the Summer@EPFL website: https://summer.epfl.ch. The application deadline for all students is the 30th November 2025.