Penn Museum Internships: Exploring Archaeology, Anthropology, and Museum Careers

The Penn Museum offers a variety of internship opportunities for students and recent graduates interested in gaining experience in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and museum studies. These internships provide rigorous and impactful mentorship, training, and career development opportunities. The Penn Museum values diversity and seeks talented interns from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. This includes but is not limited to those who are the first generation in their family to attend college, who come from low-income backgrounds and/or have had limited access to museum experiences.

Internship Program Overview

These internships are project-based placements within a specific museum department, combined with a Museum Practice Program. The Museum Practice Program includes orientation, weekly lectures, collections tours, field trips to local museums, and final presentations by the interns.

Internship Dates: June 2 - July 31, 2025

Weekly Museum Practice Program: Wednesdays 10am -12pm

All interns are expected to participate in the Museum Practice Program in person. Depending on the project needs, some departments may allow a hybrid work schedule.

A typical internship schedule is 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, 3-5 days a week. Schedules vary based on supervisor availability and project structure.

Interns are offered positions based on their academic background, professional skills, interests, and career goals as they align with Museum projects, which vary from year to year.

Eligibility and Application

Current undergraduate and graduate students, as well as recent graduates from any college or university are eligible to apply. International students enrolled in degree-granting programs are also welcome to apply.

Applicants must also complete CURF's SHIP application, the deadline for which is February 23, 2025.

The application and reference forms will be available from January 15 to March 1. Once the application is completed, an adult who can speak to the applicant's strengths and accomplishments must fill out the online letter of recommendation.

The Penn Museum values diversity at the museum and provides equal opportunity to all applicants. The museum does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability status. Additionally, the museum can offer lunch and SEPTA Trans Passes to interns who request financial assistance.

Daily Activities and Learning

In the mornings, interns work with their supervisors on summer projects and tasks. This may involve working with other staff in the supervisor’s department or with other interns. Mornings are typically dedicated to observation, assistance, and mentorship by a staff supervisor.

In the afternoons, all of the teen summer interns come together as a group to get a broader understanding of the Penn Museum. Some afternoons involve gallery tours to see what artifacts are on display. Other afternoons involve meeting with a wide variety of departments in the Museum to get a better understanding of the career paths that exist.

Available Internship Departments and Projects

Below is a list of internship opportunities offered at the Penn Museum:

University Art Collection

The University Art Collection offers internships in two key areas: Collections Management and Digital Media. Interns learn to work with the University Art Collection using best practices established by the American Alliance of Museums.

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Collections Management Intern: This intern is trained in collections cataloging and database management and provides support in paperwork processing for acquisitions, loans, image reproduction, exhibitions, and many other duties handled by the department. This intern also assists with the department’s annual inventory of artwork across Penn’s campus.
Digital Media Intern: Both Intern positions will have the opportunity to research artwork and write original content for web publication. When University Art Collection exhibitions are scheduled, both Interns will participate in the exhibition-planning process.

These positions are open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Marketing and Communications

The Marketing and Communications Department builds overall brand awareness while supporting visitation and audience engagement across exhibitions, learning and public engagement programs, research, scholarship, and many other exciting initiatives at the Penn Museum.

Public Engagement

The Public Engagement team creates diverse programs for various audiences throughout the year. An intern will contribute to the planning and execution of these programs under the guidance of the Associate Director of Public Engagement. Responsibilities will include supporting Garden Jams, which takes place every Wednesday in July from 5 to 8 pm. The museum is looking for applicants with strong customer service skills, who are open to working with visitors of all ages.

Penn Museum Anthropology Camp

Penn Museum Anthropology Camp is a summer day camp designed for children ages 6-13 and has been in operation for over 20 years. Through the scope of Penn Museum’s international collections, campers delight in topics such as mythology, dance, music, art, and customs from both long-ago civilizations and modern cultures. The Summer Camp Intern fosters a fun and positive learning environment by facilitating friendships and teamwork among campers. Reporting to the Assistant Director, Family & Camp Programs, the Summer Camp Intern assists with summer camp activities, including outdoor recess time and weekly workshops. The Intern will research and lead art-making activities and act as a mentor to camp participants. They will communicate with parents and enforce camper pickup protocol at the camp’s sign-out station. Additionally, the Summer Camp Intern will assist with summer family programming as needed.

Family Programs

The Family Programs team at Penn Museum produces a wide variety of programs such as Summer Wonder, Up Late with the Sphinx, Winter Break, Scout Programs, and Cartifacts. Reporting to the Assistant Director, Family & Camp Programs, the Family Programs intern will help assist with program facilitation during Summer Wonder, our gallery-based family program offered during June and July. The Family Programs intern will help foster a fun and positive learning environment by leading art-making workshops and activities in museum galleries. They will administer and collect visitor surveys to help us understand how families enjoy these experiences.

Learning Programs

The Learning Programs Department encompasses the Penn Museum’s K-12 Education program which strives to create and promote innovative, relevant, and engaging educational resources and programs to a variety of audiences. Over 160,000 people visit the Museum annually, including approximately 27,000 students from Philadelphia-area public, parochial, and private schools. The Museum’s various on- and off- site education programs support core school curricula and allow students to experience different cultures rather than simply read about them in a textbook.

Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC)

The Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC), a research center at the Penn Museum, is committed to the preservation of cultural heritage as part of the foundation for social justice worldwide. Founded in 2008 and directed by Richard M. Leventhal, the PennCHC draws upon the expertise of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and collaborates with researchers across the University of Pennsylvania and beyond whose research intersects with contemporary heritage issues.

Exhibitions Department

The Exhibitions Department is responsible for the development, design, fabrication, and installation of all new temporary and permanent exhibits, as well as maintaining existing displays in the Museum.

Director's Office

The Director's Office oversees and coordinates the work done across all Penn Museum departments, centers, and curatorial sections to advance the Museum’s mission to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our Penn, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices. One such current initiative is the creation of a new book that can serve as a general overview of the Museum’s collections and collections practices with information about top highlighted objects.

Penn Museum Archives

At the Penn Museum Archives, the museum collects the stories behind the artifacts. The archives include records of the museum’s archaeological expeditions to every inhabited continent, the history of the Penn Museum, and the history of the fields of archaeology and anthropology. In addition to field notes and correspondence, the museum holds three-quarters of a million images and nearly one thousand reels of motion picture film. This project is well suited for interns with a high attention to detail, strong organizational skills, and the ability to work independently.

Royal Cemetery at Ur Digitization Project

The Royal Cemetery at the ancient city of Ur was excavated from 1926 to 1932 by Sir Leonard Woolley in a joint Penn / British Museum project. It has been analyzed many times over the decades, but most analyses have concentrated on only 16 of the graves, the ones that Woolley designated as royal. These are fascinating to be sure, but there were more than 2000 graves in the area and so the 'Royal Cemetery' is much more than that. Woolley's data for the cemetery is good, but somewhat incomplete and scattered across original field notes and publications. There are also later articles that have reanalyzed the data. As part of the joint Penn / British Museum Ur-Online project (2012-2015), many people digitized data on Ur overall, but the Royal Cemetery remains incomplete. Thus, the intern for the summer of 2025 will assess the level of completion and continue the digitization and analytical process for this specific area.

The intern will be involved in:

Digitization of maps (this involves scaling and tracing old maps in a Geographic Information System).
Analysis of the distribution of graves by time period, contents, damage, etc.

In order to accomplish these tasks, the intern must be well organized and detail oriented. Familiarity with GIS programs (QGIS, ArcGIS, etc.) and 3D programs (Sketchup, Unity, etc.) is helpful but more important is the willingness to search out training on such programs for specific tasks. There are many training documents and videos on the internet and these can help a great deal in specific use of specific programs. Prior study in Mesopotamia and early cities will be helpful, but interest in this topic is more important.

The student will learn about early Mesopotamian dynasties and will ultimately address the question that we have been unable to definitively answer for 100 years: Who is buried in the Royal Cemetery? Note: this project will analyze some data concerning human remains but it will not involve the direct handling of them. It may, however, involve analysis of old photographs of skeletal remains. The goal is to understand how ancient Mesopotamians lived and what their burial practices and beliefs were.

Collections Division

The Museum’s Collections Division consists of the Conservation Department, the Registrar’s Office, Special Projects, and 11 Curatorial Sections. The Collections Division works closely with the Digital Records, Archives, and Publications (DRAP) Department, particularly in relation to the Collections Database, EMu.

An intern working with three different sections (Mediterranean Section, Registrar, and DRAP) will learn collections stewardship and registration skills. The intern will have a chance to learn basic collections management skills such as object handling, cataloguing, photography, numbering, rehousing, and using the collections database to support collections research. This type of work supports the care and stewardship of the collections, which is at the core of the mission.

Special Projects (Collections Division)

Situated within the museum’s Collections Division, Special Projects serves as a hub for cross-departmental projects that impact the collection and the collections storage areas. The Special Projects department works closely with the Registrar’s Office, Conservation Department, Exhibitions Department, and Building Operations Department to plan, manage, and facilitate institutional projects as they arise, which currently includes collections storage assessment, the Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries, and the ongoing Coxe Wing Renovation. Past projects have included the off-site move of the Egyptian collection, archaeological repatriations, and a vibration monitoring/mitigation project. A summer internship within the Special Projects department will include exposure to the museum’s collections, projects, spaces, and departments with a focus on institutional collaboration and project management.

Conservation Department

The Penn Museum’s Conservation Department is tasked with the long-term preservation and conservation of the Museum’s object collections. The Department’s regular duties include review, treatment, and setting exhibition parameters for all objects going on exhibition or out on loan, working with Collections staff to provide the best possible environment for the long-term preservation of collections in storage, and providing conservation consultation for Museum staff, researchers, and students.

Provenance & Repatriation Office

The Provenance & Repatriation Office, situated within the Collections Division at the Penn Museum, oversees provenance research and manages requests for repatriation at the Penn Museum. Interns in this department will participate in collections management and related research projects on cultural items in the collections, primarily in the Museum’s American and/or Oceanian Sections.

Student Exhibition Internship Program

The year-long internship focuses on the planning, development, design, fabrication, and installation of a small exhibition featured in the Penn Museum. Interns will learn first-hand about the curatorial, content development, administrative, and design aspects of staging an exhibition in a large museum. After the exhibition’s opening, students will implement educational programs and events for the Museum’s public and academic audiences.

Undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, in good academic standing, preferably with some experience in archaeology, history, anthropology, art history, or other fields that explore issues related to the exhibition topic, are welcome to apply.

Interns are selected based on their academic background, research and writing skills, and ability to collaborate with peers and Museum departments. Candidates should be enthusiastic, organized, self-motivated, and able to work both individually and collaboratively as part of a diverse team. Successful candidates will have experience conducting research and should be able to work on a variety of tasks as priorities require, demonstrate excellent communication and writing skills, and be extremely detail oriented. Candidates must be able to interact in a professional manner with Museum visitors, patrons and supporters, researchers, and other staff.

The internship requires an average of five hours per week, including two hours of curatorial and exhibition meetings. Interns are expected to conduct research, select objects, and write exhibition text outside of these meetings. After candidates are selected, interns will meet with Penn Museum staff and the academic advisor to discuss the program and exhibition theme. Over the summer, interns are expected to read and respond to a small number of selected readings related to the exhibition theme to prepare for curatorial research beginning in the Fall semester.

Over the course of the academic year, interns will meet weekly as a curatorial team and with the Exhibitions Department of the Penn Museum to plan, develop, design, and fabricate the exhibition, as well as design and implement programming related to the exhibition. Interns will work closely with the curatorial team, the Exhibitions Department, collections staff, and conservators.

In the Fall semester, interns will develop the exhibition theme, select and research objects, and write exhibition text. In the Spring semester, interns will focus on the design and fabrication of the exhibition, as well as creating and implementing programming related to the exhibition for the Museum’s public and academic audiences.

The Student Exhibition Internship Program is a paid opportunity. Interns are awarded a stipend of $1,500 ($750 per semester).

Compensation

Interns are paid $17 an hour ($5100 for 300 hours) and will become temporary employees of the University of Pennsylvania.

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