Ducks Give 2023

The Knight Campus Graduate Internship Program (KCGIP) is an accelerated master’s program at UO that provides hands-on training in specialized coursework (6-9 months) followed by a competitively paid 9-month industry internship in the areas of manufacturing, high tech and healthcare. The program has a 20+ year track record at UO with 1,000+ alumni and found a new home in the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact (and was rebranded the Knight Campus Graduate Internship Program) after the Knight Campus was established in 2016. The KCGIP also provides professional development; inclusion & diversity workshops; and holistic mentorship. The outcomes of students and alumni point to the success of the program in workforce development: 

• 98% graduation rate with a Mater's in Applied Physics, Chemistry or Biology
• $74,500 average internship salary of 2023 cohort (all students secured internships)
• 90% high-wage employment of alumni within 3 months of graduation with common industrial titles including Process Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Research Chemist, Research & Development Technologist.
• 27 different Oregon-based company sites have hired KCGIP interns since 2019

Within the MS degree offerings (Applied Physics, Chemistry or Biology), students specialize in one of the following 5 tracks:

• Optical Material & Devices 
• Photovoltaic & Semiconductor Device Processing 
• Polymer Science 
• Molecular Sensors & Probes 
• Bioinformatics & Genomics 
• Coming soon: Data Science

“The University of Oregon Knight Campus Graduate Internship Program is a critical pipeline for MKS – providing not only talented physicists, engineers, and chemists, but also a richer diversity of candidates than many other STEM pipeline programs. Because of their excellence in training, we continue to seek out their alumni and interns.” 

-Jan Kleinert, MKS Fellow, MKS Instruments

With 33% of KCGIP students qualified as low-income as self-reported Pell Grant Eligibility since 2017, your support via Ducks Give will fund scholarships that support more students to successfully complete this accelerated master’s program, and gain entry to high-paying jobs in industry.