The eight-week, paid JJ Vance Memorial Internship Program is awarded to outstanding juniors in good standing from Miami- and Broward-area high schools. Internship recipients have the opportunity to participate in a challenging research course at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Interns are paired with an HIHG staff member, postdoc, or faculty member as they take part in research activities.
The program was established by family and friends of JJ Vance, who was a student at East Chapel Hill High School in North Carolina at the time of his death. After JJ died, HIHG Director Dr. Margaret A. Pericak-Vance; her husband, Dr. Jeffery M. Vance; and their daughter, Dr. Danica Vance received more than 300 letters from people who knew JJ. The letters recounted JJ’s acts of kindness, his passion for life, and his fundamental belief to help those around him. Heartened by the public response to JJ’s death and committed to celebrating his life, the Vance family created the JJ Vance Foundation a few months after JJ’s death.
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