Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an Adobe Research intern? Are you curious what makes for a good intern candidate and why graduate students decide to apply? Want to learn more about what interns do while they’re here, and how their work with us impacts the rest of their careers?
We talked to some of this summer’s interns and seasoned Adobe Research mentors to answer your questions. Read on for the inside scoop—and check out how to apply for summer 2025.
What does Adobe Research look for in an intern? And what inspires grad students to apply?
Senior Research Scientist and mentor Ryan Rossi looks for intern candidates who are “highly motivated and self-driven, extremely passionate, hard-working, open-minded, and creative, with good communication skills.” He’s also eager to collaborate with interns whose work aligns with his team’s research areas.
When it comes to applying, interns tell us that they’re looking for a good match with their graduate work, and an opportunity to explore the world of industrial research while working alongside some of the top researchers in their fields.
Intern Deonna Owens, who’s planning to focus on bias in AI during her master’s program at Stanford, already knew a lot about Adobe when she applied. “As an undergrad at Langston University, I was part of the Adobe HBCU 20X20 Fellowship, which connects students with companies for sessions on everything from resume writing to mock interviews. I knew I wanted to apply for the internship because I already loved the Adobe culture.”
Intern Adam Coscia, who’s heading into his fifth year of a PhD program in human-centered computing at Georgia Tech, decided to apply after several government-related internships, including summers at NASA and the NSA. “I hadn’t tried industry internships yet,” he explains. “It’s a type of research and ecosystem I wasn’t familiar with, and I wanted to experience it before I finished the PhD.”
Vishal Asnani, a PhD student at Michigan State, returned to Adobe Research for a second internship this summer. When he was first looking for summer opportunities for the first time, he explored various researcher profiles at different companies and found a good connection and match for the team focused on content authenticity at Adobe. “The team alignment was a perfect match. They were working in the same field I’m working in, so there was interest on both sides.”
For Josh Myers-Dean, a PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder whose research focuses on computer vision, the Adobe Research internship journey began when he learned that his PhD advisor was collaborating with researchers at Adobe. He had his first internship with Adobe two summers ago, and he’s been collaborating with his Adobe Research mentor ever since. “It’s like having a second advisor, which has been really valuable,” he says.
How do interns choose a summer research project? What do they accomplish?
With just three months to do something amazing, mentors work with students—often before the summer begins—to find a project that meets their interests and intersects with Adobe’s priorities. “I want the student to be excited about what they’re doing, and reap the benefits with a published paper, patent, and tech-transfer. We spend time going over related work to understand state-of-the-art techniques, and we talk about project ideas,” says Rossi.
Asnani, whose PhD interests include content authenticity, wanted to apply his skills and knowledge to protecting intellectual property in images produced by generative AI. “Last summer we worked on the research area of adding watermarks to the training data for concept attribution,and we were able to file a patent and submit a CVPR publication based on our project,” says Asnani. The paper was published at CVPR 2024. This summer, Asnani has returned to Adobe to do further work on visual watermarking technology.
Owens also launched a project that complements her graduate research—in her case, reducing bias in AI. “My mentor asked about my interests, and we landed on a project that uses a multi-agent approach to reduce bias in large language models (LLMs).” A similar approach has been used for fact checking LLMs, but Owens used it to reduce age, race/ethnicity, disability, and other biases. “We found that the method reduced bias, and I’m getting ready to submit my first paper for publication, based on this research.”
Myers-Dean’s PhD work in computer vision focuses on segmentation, which is one of the research areas behind Adobe’s creative tools. “A key task in the creative pipeline is selecting a subject. But say my object is a person. If I click on the person’s head versus their arm, I may get two different selections, which is very frustrating. We’ve been trying to enforce consistency, so that no matter where I click on an object, I recover that same object,” explains Myers-Dean. Both of his Adobe Research internship projects on segmentation will be chapters in his upcoming dissertation.
Before his Adobe Research internship, Coscia spent several summers developing tools to help experts—from ocean researchers to NASA scientists—work with the specialized data in their fields. “I like to develop interfaces that people can play with to visualize data in different ways,” he explains. At the beginning of the summer, he and his mentor brainstormed a project that built into Coscia’s visualization experience to improve the classic chat interface people use when they work with AI assistants. “We wanted to augment conversations with visualizations that help people do a deeper reading of what the AI is saying, and to see if they’re accomplishing their goals.”
What’s the intern-mentor relationship like?
For Research Scientist and former Adobe Research intern Shunan Guo, being a mentor isn’t just about managing an intern. It’s also a chance to discover new things and build lasting relationships. “What I love most is brainstorming and having free-form discussions with interns to really share our ideas and see how they align. Every researcher here has been through their PhD journey, so we all have our role models, and we want to be that guide for someone else. That is the highlight of everything.”
Many interns continue their collaborations after the summer ends. As Myers-Dean explains, “My mentor has been a catalyst for my research. Even when I’m not at Adobe, we meet every Friday. We’ve published two or three papers together and we have one in preparation from this summer.” Coscia adds, “My mentor is helping me figure out where my internship project goes next. It’s a golden opportunity, and I’m excited to see what we can accomplish.”
Some interns, like Guo, join Adobe Research full-time once they complete their graduate work.
How can interns make the most of their time at Adobe Research?
Asnani recommends taking time to learn from other interns, see Adobe from the inside, and join in social events. “An Adobe Research internship gives you the opportunity to meet people from so many different universities and countries so you can learn about the ideas and work happening in the broader community. On top of that, the employee meetings helped me understand how industry works, and the social events were great, too. Plus, in San Jose you can always go out to the basketball court to distract your mind, which gives you a fresh perspective when you get back to work.”
Owens adds, “While you’re at Adobe Research, ask for help when you need it. You’re surrounded by experts, so take advantage of that.”
As a former-intern-turned-mentor, Guo advises her summer mentees to “Use this opportunity to learn what it’s like doing research in industry. The summer is a rare opportunity to meet with a more diverse group of people than you do in school. You’ll work with people in different areas, like design and product, and see how we collaborate and shape our ideas. You can do research anywhere, but there’s a chance to learn so much more here.”
Are you interested in an Adobe Research internship? Learn more and apply here.Wondering what else is happening inside Adobe Research? Check out our latest news here.
