Science & Research CPT Jobs in California
California is one of the strongest states for science and research F-1 CPT roles, with major employers at biotech hubs in San Diego and San Francisco, national laboratories like Lawrence Berkeley and SLAC, and university-affiliated research centers throughout the state actively hiring students on curricular practical training for lab, computational, and field research positions.
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Get Access To All JobsLab Assistant (Intern), Quality Control
Position Summary:
- Work Schedule: Part-time (15-20 hours per week) Monday-Friday between 8am-5pm
- 100% on-site (San Diego)
Catalent, Inc. is a leading global Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), and Catalent’s San Diego facility focuses on early-stage development of small molecule and peptide drug candidates from the bench to the clinic. This facility offers an array of services that support oral and injectable dosage forms that include preformulation testing, formulation and analytical development, cGMP manufacturing and clinical packaging, labeling, and worldwide distribution. Our San Diego location is the home of our Catalent Spray Drying technologies with downstream roller compaction capabilities to support the needs of our client’s most challenging compounds.
Catalent offers students a fun and stimulating environment to gain lab experience and exposure to pharmaceutical chemistry development. Lab Assistants will have the opportunity to learn about formulation development of drug products, including but not limited to tableting, solutions, suspensions, encapsulation, and spray drying. In addition, Assistants will have the opportunity to learn the analytical chemistry techniques used to characterize active pharmaceutical ingredients and formulations such as: pH, density, powder X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, microscopy, and dissolution testing.
If you are a UC San Diego student and are hired, you are likely eligible to enroll in the UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences Co-Op Program. In addition to paid work experience at Catalent, you’d gain professional development and science communication training through a UC San Diego course for academic credit. (This is the Co-Op Program link: https://biology.ucsd.edu/education/career/co-op/index.html)
This is a PART TIME, PAID, YEAR-ROUND student internship, and all students are required to commit 15-20 hours per week (NOTE: bachelor’s degree graduates will not be considered). To be considered for this San Diego-based internship, you must be able to work on-site weekly.
The Role:
- Cleaning laboratory glassware and supplies.
- Performing maintenance on designated laboratory equipment and ordering supplies.
- Preparation of buffers and laboratory reagents.
- Documenting experiments in a laboratory notebook.
- Assistance in experiments under the supervision of a full-time pharmaceutical chemist or quality control analyst.
- May also perform routine experiments without supervision.
- Learn and comply with all GMP practices in use at Catalent.
- All duties performed in compliance with SOPs.
The Candidate:
- Must currently be a full time, minimum second year college student with a major in life sciences. Chemistry, Biochemistry, or Biology majors (with a focus in Chemistry) preferred.
- Completion of Upper Division Chemistry Coursework is preferred. Prior experience in chemistry and chemistry lab techniques are strongly recommended.
- Candidates should be highly self-motivated, organized, and able to work as part of a team.
- Availability to work 15-20 hours per week on-site during the hours of 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday (no exceptions).
- Housing assistance and/or relocation are NOT available for this role.
- Physical Requirements: On an average day this position requires the ability to walk, sit and stand, use hands to handle or feel, reach with hands and arms at or above shoulder height and below waist height, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl; talk and hear, smell and lift up to 25 pounds. Specific vision requirements including reading of written documents, visual inspection of materials and use of computer monitor screen frequently.
Pay:
- The annual starting pay for this position in San Diego, CA is $20/hour. The final salary offered to a successful candidate may vary, and will be dependent on several factors that may include but are not limited to: the type and length of experience within the job, type and length of experience within the industry, skillset, education, business needs, etc. Catalent is a multi-state employer, and this salary range may not reflect positions that work in other states.
Why you should join Catalent:
- Awesome employee activities: Movie Day, Monthly Birthday Celebrations, Friday Bagel Breakfast, On-site Fitness Center with machines, Sponsored Sports Teams, and several other company-sponsored events that encourages positive employee comradery, which contributes to effectively building positive employee relationships, overall creating a positive work environment.
- Environmentally friendly green initiatives with on-site practices as well as regularly participating in Beach Clean-up activities for community engagement.
- Several Employee Resource Groups focusing on Diversity and Inclusion.
- Competitive salary/hourly rate offering students an amazing company to add to your resume before graduation with exciting hands-on lab experience.
- Positive and fast-paced working environment focusing on continually improving processes to remain innovative and dynamic.
Catalent offers rewarding opportunities to further your career! Join the global drug development and delivery leader and help us bring over 7,000 life-saving and life-enhancing products to patients around the world. Catalent is an exciting and growing international company where employees work directly with pharma, biopharma and consumer health companies of all sizes to advance new medicines from early development to clinical trials and to the market. Catalent produces more than 70 billion doses per year, and each one will be used by someone who is counting on us. Join us in making a difference.
personal initiative. dynamic pace. meaningful work.
Catalent is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and veterans.
If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process due to a disability, you may submit your request by sending an email, and confirming your request for an accommodation and include the job number, title and location to DisabilityAccommodations@catalent.com. This option is reserved for individuals who require accommodation due to a disability. Information received will be processed by a U.S. Catalent employee and then routed to a local recruiter who will provide assistance to ensure appropriate consideration in the application or hiring process.
Notice to Agency and Search Firm Representatives: Catalent Pharma Solutions (Catalent) is not accepting unsolicited resumes from agencies and/or search firms for this job posting. Resumes submitted to any Catalent employee by a third party agency and/or search firm without a valid written & signed search agreement, will become the sole property of Catalent. No fee will be paid if a candidate is hired for this position as a result of an unsolicited agency or search firm referral. Thank you.
Important Security Notice to U.S. Job Seekers:
Catalent NEVER asks candidates to provide any type of payment, bank details, photocopies of identification, social security number or other highly sensitive personal information during the offer process, and we NEVER do so via email or social media. If you receive any such request, DO NOT respond— it is a fraudulent request. Please forward such requests to spam@catalent.com for us to investigate with local authorities.
California Job Seekers can find our California Job Applicant Notice HERE.
Lab Assistant (Intern), Quality Control
Position Summary:
- Work Schedule: Part-time (15-20 hours per week) Monday-Friday between 8am-5pm
- 100% on-site (San Diego)
Catalent, Inc. is a leading global Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), and Catalent’s San Diego facility focuses on early-stage development of small molecule and peptide drug candidates from the bench to the clinic. This facility offers an array of services that support oral and injectable dosage forms that include preformulation testing, formulation and analytical development, cGMP manufacturing and clinical packaging, labeling, and worldwide distribution. Our San Diego location is the home of our Catalent Spray Drying technologies with downstream roller compaction capabilities to support the needs of our client’s most challenging compounds.
Catalent offers students a fun and stimulating environment to gain lab experience and exposure to pharmaceutical chemistry development. Lab Assistants will have the opportunity to learn about formulation development of drug products, including but not limited to tableting, solutions, suspensions, encapsulation, and spray drying. In addition, Assistants will have the opportunity to learn the analytical chemistry techniques used to characterize active pharmaceutical ingredients and formulations such as: pH, density, powder X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, microscopy, and dissolution testing.
If you are a UC San Diego student and are hired, you are likely eligible to enroll in the UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences Co-Op Program. In addition to paid work experience at Catalent, you’d gain professional development and science communication training through a UC San Diego course for academic credit. (This is the Co-Op Program link: https://biology.ucsd.edu/education/career/co-op/index.html)
This is a PART TIME, PAID, YEAR-ROUND student internship, and all students are required to commit 15-20 hours per week (NOTE: bachelor’s degree graduates will not be considered). To be considered for this San Diego-based internship, you must be able to work on-site weekly.
The Role:
- Cleaning laboratory glassware and supplies.
- Performing maintenance on designated laboratory equipment and ordering supplies.
- Preparation of buffers and laboratory reagents.
- Documenting experiments in a laboratory notebook.
- Assistance in experiments under the supervision of a full-time pharmaceutical chemist or quality control analyst.
- May also perform routine experiments without supervision.
- Learn and comply with all GMP practices in use at Catalent.
- All duties performed in compliance with SOPs.
The Candidate:
- Must currently be a full time, minimum second year college student with a major in life sciences. Chemistry, Biochemistry, or Biology majors (with a focus in Chemistry) preferred.
- Completion of Upper Division Chemistry Coursework is preferred. Prior experience in chemistry and chemistry lab techniques are strongly recommended.
- Candidates should be highly self-motivated, organized, and able to work as part of a team.
- Availability to work 15-20 hours per week on-site during the hours of 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday (no exceptions).
- Housing assistance and/or relocation are NOT available for this role.
- Physical Requirements: On an average day this position requires the ability to walk, sit and stand, use hands to handle or feel, reach with hands and arms at or above shoulder height and below waist height, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl; talk and hear, smell and lift up to 25 pounds. Specific vision requirements including reading of written documents, visual inspection of materials and use of computer monitor screen frequently.
Pay:
- The annual starting pay for this position in San Diego, CA is $20/hour. The final salary offered to a successful candidate may vary, and will be dependent on several factors that may include but are not limited to: the type and length of experience within the job, type and length of experience within the industry, skillset, education, business needs, etc. Catalent is a multi-state employer, and this salary range may not reflect positions that work in other states.
Why you should join Catalent:
- Awesome employee activities: Movie Day, Monthly Birthday Celebrations, Friday Bagel Breakfast, On-site Fitness Center with machines, Sponsored Sports Teams, and several other company-sponsored events that encourages positive employee comradery, which contributes to effectively building positive employee relationships, overall creating a positive work environment.
- Environmentally friendly green initiatives with on-site practices as well as regularly participating in Beach Clean-up activities for community engagement.
- Several Employee Resource Groups focusing on Diversity and Inclusion.
- Competitive salary/hourly rate offering students an amazing company to add to your resume before graduation with exciting hands-on lab experience.
- Positive and fast-paced working environment focusing on continually improving processes to remain innovative and dynamic.
Catalent offers rewarding opportunities to further your career! Join the global drug development and delivery leader and help us bring over 7,000 life-saving and life-enhancing products to patients around the world. Catalent is an exciting and growing international company where employees work directly with pharma, biopharma and consumer health companies of all sizes to advance new medicines from early development to clinical trials and to the market. Catalent produces more than 70 billion doses per year, and each one will be used by someone who is counting on us. Join us in making a difference.
personal initiative. dynamic pace. meaningful work.
Catalent is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and veterans.
If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process due to a disability, you may submit your request by sending an email, and confirming your request for an accommodation and include the job number, title and location to DisabilityAccommodations@catalent.com. This option is reserved for individuals who require accommodation due to a disability. Information received will be processed by a U.S. Catalent employee and then routed to a local recruiter who will provide assistance to ensure appropriate consideration in the application or hiring process.
Notice to Agency and Search Firm Representatives: Catalent Pharma Solutions (Catalent) is not accepting unsolicited resumes from agencies and/or search firms for this job posting. Resumes submitted to any Catalent employee by a third party agency and/or search firm without a valid written & signed search agreement, will become the sole property of Catalent. No fee will be paid if a candidate is hired for this position as a result of an unsolicited agency or search firm referral. Thank you.
Important Security Notice to U.S. Job Seekers:
Catalent NEVER asks candidates to provide any type of payment, bank details, photocopies of identification, social security number or other highly sensitive personal information during the offer process, and we NEVER do so via email or social media. If you receive any such request, DO NOT respond— it is a fraudulent request. Please forward such requests to spam@catalent.com for us to investigate with local authorities.
California Job Seekers can find our California Job Applicant Notice HERE.
CPT Science & Research Job Roles in California
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Search Science & Research Jobs in CaliforniaScience & Research CPT Sponsorship Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
Which science and research companies sponsor F-1 CPT visas in California?
California's biotech and research sector includes organizations that regularly bring on F-1 CPT students, including Genentech, Illumina, Gilead Sciences, and the Salk Institute in San Diego, as well as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. National labs such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore also host CPT students through formal internship programs tied to university partnerships.
Which cities in California have the most science and research F-1 CPT sponsorship jobs?
San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area lead for life sciences and biotech CPT placements. San Diego's Torrey Pines area concentrates pharmaceutical and genomics employers, while the Bay Area spans biotech in South San Francisco and computational biology roles near UC Berkeley and Stanford. Los Angeles adds opportunities in aerospace research, environmental science, and university-based labs at UCLA and Caltech.
What types of science and research roles typically qualify for F-1 CPT sponsorship?
Roles that directly apply coursework from a science or research degree program are eligible for CPT authorization. Common qualifying positions include research assistant, lab technician, bioinformatics analyst, environmental scientist intern, computational researcher, and data scientist in a research setting. The position must be integral to the student's degree program and authorized by their designated school official before work begins.
How do I find science & research F-1 CPT sponsorship jobs in California?
Migrate Mate is designed specifically for international students searching for CPT-eligible roles, with filters for visa type, industry, and state. For science and research jobs in California, you can narrow results to biotech, environmental science, and lab research positions at California-based employers with documented CPT sponsorship experience, saving time compared to filtering through general job boards that don't surface visa sponsorship details.
Are there any California-specific considerations for F-1 CPT in science and research?
California's dense concentration of UC and CSU campuses means many employers near those institutions have established CPT onboarding processes. Students should confirm their university has a formal agreement or history with a given employer, since CPT must be tied to an offer that fits the academic program. California's competitive research hiring also means applications often require research proposals or writing samples, so preparation lead time matters.