Written by Colin McEvoy | February 20, 2025 | SHARE
Lehigh’s Iacocca International Internship Program is providing 66 students with fully funded opportunities to gain career-building experiences abroad this summer
Kaitlyn Campbell ‘26 had never traveled overseas before enrolling at Lehigh University, and only just received her first passport this month. She never imagined she’d have the opportunity to apply for a fully-funded international internship as a student.
"I went to an information session about it, and my first thought was, ‘This is too good to be true,’” said Campbell, a Dallas, Tex. native majoring in both Psychology and Health, Medicine & Society. “I thought it was really special that Lehigh offered something like this for students like me, because honestly, I wouldn’t have the financial opportunity otherwise.”
This summer, Campbell will be traveling to Cape Town, where she’ll be learning about industrial-organizational psychology and clinical psychology in the South African capital thanks to the Iacocca International Internship Program (IIIP).
She is one of 66 students who have received summer internships through the IIIP this year. From that cohort, 38 report that they have never been abroad before, according to Anastassiya Perevezentseva, Assistant Director of IIIP.
“We are pleased to welcome the 2025 cohort, who were chosen through a highly competitive selection process,” said Anastassiya Perevezentseva, Assistant Director of IIIP. “We look forward to the journeys ahead for each of our learners and are excited to enhance access to international opportunities for students.”
IIIP provides interns with practical work experience, grounded in global context, aimed at enhancing students’ career readiness and intercultural competency. More than 800 Lehigh students have had high-quality internships in 58 countries since the program’s inception in 2011.
This year’s students will be interning in a wide range of countries, including Armenia, Bermuda, Chile, France, Ireland, Japan, Montenegro, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, and Uganda, with the majority of students interning in the broader Asian region.
The program is also committed to innovation and expansion of the types of internship opportunities while creating more opportunities over the course of the academic cycle. In Summer 2025, four interns will be placed in Portugal through a new partnership with the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD), utilizing their Study in Portugal Network (SiPN).
Additionally, the Iacocca Institute successfully piloted a short-term externship program in Ghana over the winter break, working with Todd Watkins, Professor of Economics and Executive Director of the Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise, and the African Center for Governance and Economic Management (ACGEM).
Students in this pilot initiative learned about and engaged in work related to policy advocacy, capability development in areas such as public administration, fiscal management, and anti-corruption measures in Ghana.
Kara Herdelin ‘26, who has also never traveled internationally before, will study bioengineering research at the University of Galway in Ireland as part of the Lehigh in Ireland program. A bioengineering major, she will be working on bioprinting and biomaterials for artificial hearts.
“It’s just such a great opportunity,” Herdelin siad. “It’s giving me a chance to go overseas and see what they’re practicing and what their research looks like. It’s opening a new world of medicine to me, which I’m very excited about.”
This year’s IIIP cohort includes five international students and 32 students who identify as first-generation, Perevezentseva said. Out of the 66 selected students, 64 receive some amount of financial aid, with the majority of students considered high-need, Perevezentseva said. This reflects the commitment of Lehigh and the Office of International Affairs (OIA) to making global experiences accessible to students from all financial backgrounds.
Students from four of the five Lehigh colleges received IIIP placements this year, Perevezentseva said. About 250 students in total applied for internships.
Campbell said she sought an internship in Cape Town because of the broad range of opportunities in public health, media, and communication. Her internship will be facilitated by the IES Abroad, a long-time partner with Lehigh, which offers more than 140 study abroad programs in 30 locations around the world.
IIIP was established in 2011 through a generous endowment by Lee Iacocca ‘45, who championed the value of providing students with hands-on opportunities to apply their academic knowledge and skills in real life.