Operating Status Summer 2024:

TBD

Student Requirements:

Students must be solely U.S. citizens. (Dual citizens and permanent residents are not eligible.)

Mission

The mission of CIHL is to maximize readiness of Operational Forces and Navy Medical Commands within the Pacific region by providing specialized Public Health support. The laboratory provides consultation and analytical services in the areas of industrial hygiene sampling/analysis and occupational health to our customers. This includes chemical analysis of air, toxic property products and the performance of toxicological testing to evaluate exposure to hazardous materials. CIHL will ensure the reliability, quality, precision and accuracy of all analytical data provided to all customer activities.

About the Lab

Navy Marine Corps Public Health Center (NMCPHC) operates two (Comprehensive Industrial Hygiene Laboratories (CIHL) located in Norfolk, VA and San Diego, CA. The laboratories provide analysis of samples collected under the technical direction of U.S. Navy Industrial Hygienists to identify and quantify occupational exposures of U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps personnel, both military and civilian, to chemical substances. The CIHLs also analyze biological samples submitted by occupational health physicians and nurses for the determination of lead, cadmium, and mercury in urine or blood and use the analytical results to calculate, interpret and report potential occupational exposure. CIHL analyzes several thousands of samples annually and provides analytical services in the areas of industrial hygiene for the analysis of air, toxic properties products, and performance of toxicological testing to evaluate workers’ exposure to hazardous material.

What is unique about this lab?

The laboratory carries out analytical testing in different fields of testing for different type of sampling. Operations consist of multiple tasks outside the analytical procedures that are essential to the accurate and reliable analysis of samples, sample handling, and result reporting. The laboratory strives to ensure services rendered to customers (US Navy and US Marine Corps) are of high quality ad processes are performed efficiently and in compliance with accreditation requirements (AIHA-LAP, LLC and COLA-CLIP cert.)

About the Internship

We are looking for bright, motivated, reliable students who have an interest in analytical chemistry and would like the opportunity to learn about method validation relating to industrial hygiene fields of testing. Students will be assigned a mentor who will train them in good laboratory practices, method validation, generalization of the instrumentation and a review of quality assurance and quality control. An analytical method will be provided and, with the guidance of the mentor, interns will be required to use the assigned analytical method to achieve a complete validation.

What will I do any given day as an intern at this lab?

Interns will primarily assist mentors with guided validation of new methods.

What subjects are a good fit for interning at this lab?

• Biology
• Chemistry
• Earth Science
• Environmental Science
• Physical Science

What will I learn as an intern at this lab?

As part of the internship, you will get hands-on experience in the validation process of an analytical method that will be utilized to analyze Industrial Hygiene samples collected out in the field for specific analyte(s) of interest. Validation will include, but not be limited to, understanding the chemistry of the analyte, reagents and chemicals used, instrumentation operations, use of laboratory equipment, good laboratory practices, analytical data collection and analysis, trouble shooting, and much more.