Unveiling Opportunities: Internships at the Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) offers a range of internships designed to provide students and emerging professionals with invaluable experience in the arts and museum fields. These internships are structured to build skills, foster a deeper understanding of the arts, and unveil potential career paths within museum environments. By collaborating with professionals across various disciplines, interns make significant contributions to PEM while developing crucial professional, organizational, and networking skills.
A Glimpse into PEM's Learning & Community Engagement
The Learning & Community Engagement team at PEM plays a pivotal role in enriching the museum experience for visitors of all ages. This team deepens people’s understanding of and connection to the artistry, scholarship, science and sense of community PEM offers. They provide opportunities for people to gather, learn, play, celebrate and create. From The Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center, our hub for intergenerational explorations, to artist residencies, multidisciplinary performances, internships and innovative learning programs, we have something for everyone. Through public programming and performances, PEM offers thought-provoking experiences of the arts, humanities and sciences to activate understanding of our shared humanity and to empower imagination and learning through experimentation. PEM Presents further activates the museum as a global center for artistry, culture and creativity, with artist residencies, live performances, lecture series and symposia. PEM Reads celebrates the art of literature and the creative act of writing through a year-round series of collaborative book club readings and author events, both in person and online. Designed to surprise and delight, Exhibition Engagements enhance and deepen the connection between our visitors and our current exhibition, fostering an environment of continuous learning. PEM is renowned for its major annual events that engage and celebrate our wide-ranging audiences. Music in the Atrium transforms our central gathering space into a hub of creativity and entertainment.
Diverse Internship Opportunities
PEM internships span a variety of departments, providing a wide array of experiences. Internships are available in a range of departments, alternating each season. Some examples include:
- Exhibition Design & Production: This internship offers practical, hands-on experience in exhibition design and production.
- Phillips Library Digital Projects: The intern will conduct research into the copyright of our collections and create metadata using local rules.
- Human Resources: The Human Resources team provides consultation partnerships for employment, employee relations, training and development, benefits, compensation, human resources information systems (HRIS), performance management, equal opportunity and labor relations. HR leads the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) by demonstrating the behaviors in a human-centered environment that requires us to understand, respond to and create dialogue opportunities to address needs, support opportunities for growth, and streamline processes for efficiency.
- Arts & Nature Center (ANC): The ANC is looking for an intern who will work with education staff in the implementation and facilitation of a variety of interactive programs. The ANC encompasses regular drop-in art making activities, exhibition facilitation and maintenance, and opportunities for independent projects. Independent projects can include supporting exhibition evaluation, generating public programming ideas, and exploring future ANC exhibition topics. ANC interns will also assist in a variety of administrative tasks.
- Accounting: Our Finance team is seeking an intern to assist with day-to-day tasks and multiple strategic projects during the Summer of 2026. This content will highlight the museum’s collections, exhibitions, and public programming.
- Horticulturalist: In this role, you will gain practical experience by engaging in various landscape, arboriculture, and greenhouse maintenance tasks across the Peabody Essex Museum campus. Your responsibilities may include planting, weeding, watering, and pruning, among other activities. You will also assist with administrative tasks such as arboretum record keeping, IPM logging, and historical research.
Interns might find themselves creating videos, digitizing historic papers, coordinating events, or conducting exhibition research. The museum also seeks motivated, energetic high school students to work with the Learning and Community Engagement team as Emerging Arts Leaders. This internship offers participants the opportunity to engage with art, culture and history, share critical feedback with PEM and learn about a range of career paths. Interns will work with staff members, peers and professional artists to evaluate the museum's outreach and make recommendations on how to engage teen audiences through events, exhibitions and special projects. Internships run in the fall and spring.
Classic Guides Program
Our Classic Guides Program is a lifelong learning opportunity for volunteers, providing intellectual, social and emotional support, while creating a deep social network dedicated to the success and long-term life of PEM. Public, Private & Curator-Led Tours Guides and curators lead regularly scheduled gallery tours, provide in-depth knowledge, share behind-the-scenes stories and engage with visitors on a personal level.
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Creative Foundations
Creative Foundations classes are designed for both beginners and advanced practitioners seeking new challenges. These workshops blend access to our rich and multi-faceted global collection with personal instruction from experienced educators and professional artists, making each session an immersive and enriching experience. Past sessions include glass blowing and oil painting.
School Programming
With in-depth, standards-based activities and lesson plans that also support students and educators’ social and emotional well-being, our in-school and onsite programs provide students and teachers with illuminating opportunities to activate their learning via the arts. Each year, more than 10,000 students visit PEM with school groups and thousands more are served by our in-school and after-school programming throughout schools and community centers.
Professional Development
Professional Development offerings provide educators and artists with opportunities to grow their capacity and expand their access to PEM. Lesson Plans & Study GuidesWe offer supporting materials about ongoing exhibitions, collections and special topics for students, educators and learners of all ages and backgrounds.
Phillips Library Internship: A Deep Dive into Digital Projects
For those interested in library science and digital humanities, the Phillips Library at PEM offers a unique internship focused on digital projects. Join the Phillips Library, PEM’s research library, as digital projects intern for Summer 2026! Our digitization program exponentially increases free, worldwide access to our collections and demonstrates that the library is a vital and engaged part of the museum and its communities. The project will include digitization for our online collections portal, including the imaging and post-processing of collections. The incumbent will conduct research into the copyright of our collections and create metadata using local rules. In addition to time spent on the main project, the intern will have time to shadow other library departments. We will provide a broad view of library operations and encourage interns to participate in meetings, small projects, outings, and other opportunities as they arise.
Structure and Time Commitment
All fall and spring internships are 12 weeks long and require 15 hours of onsite work per week, totaling 180 hours, unless otherwise noted. Summer internships are 10 weeks long and require 18 hours of onsite work per week, also totaling 180 hours. There will be a mandatory in-person orientation on the first day of each internship, from 10 am-4 pm. Interns are also required to participate in professional development sessions every Thursday from 10 am-noon throughout the internship.
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For example, the Summer Internship Program will run from June 11 to August 24, 2026, or an agreed upon end date with the hiring manager. A mandatory in-person orientation will be held at the museum on Thursday, June 11, 2026, from 10 AM to 4 PM. Interns are also required to participate in professional development sessions, held on Thursdays through August 13th.
Compensation and Location
This internship provides a $2,000 stipend and requires the completion of 180 hours, which includes participation in professional development programming. This equates to approximately 18 onsite hours per week over the course of ten weeks. All internships are fully in person and take place on site.
Application Process
Applications for our summer 2026 internships are now open! Internships posted: February 2026Applications accepted through February-March 15, 2026**We encourage early submission of applications, as we review them and schedule interviews on a rolling basis throughout the application period. Positions will be removed as they are filled or once the acceptance period ends. Please carefully review each internship description for details about required hours, eligibility criteria and potential work locations.
If you’re a student in Greater Boston interested in learning more about our internships, PEM will be stopping by select colleges and universities for upcoming career fairs now through Thursday, March 12. Our PEM staff members can answer your internship questions!
PEM's Internship and Fellowship Programs help prepare individuals for successful careers in the arts through immersive experiences and enriching opportunities. Rooted in our commitment to equity, belonging and collaboration, we empower cohorts of emerging leaders to explore, create and lead with passion and purpose. By fostering an inclusive environment that celebrates creativity and curiosity, we cultivate a community dedicated to shaping the future of museum work.
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Is a PEM Internship Right for You?
If your answer is "Yes!," an internship at PEM might be right for you. Whether you aspire to work in exhibition design, library science, education, or another museum-related field, PEM internships offer the chance to gain practical experience, develop valuable skills, and network with professionals in a dynamic and engaging environment. PEM internships offer opportunities to build skills, learn about the arts and discover career opportunities in museums. You’ll collaborate side by side with professionals in a wide range of fields and make valuable contributions. You might create a video, digitize historic papers, coordinate a wedding or research an exhibition. In every department and with every project, interns learn valuable professional, organizational and networking skills.
Exploring Nature's Influence
Explores ways that nature is fundamental to what makes us human - from cultivating empathy to expanding awareness. Advances our individual connections with nature and an embodied relationship with the more-than-human world. Foregrounds work by contemporary artists offering visions of the natural world that foster hope and motivate change.Embeds interactivity and art making for all ages to engage participation, spark creativity and inspire joy.
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