Smithsonian Internship
Notre Dame anthropology majors and minors have an exclusive opportunity to participate in research and training internships with the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington DC. The Museum staff guarantees that at least one of our students will be selected for their summer internships.
This program, funded by Notre Dame's Department of Anthropology, represents the first collaboration of its kind between the Smithsonian and a university.
The Smithsonian selected Notre Dame for this partnership because of the department's integrative approach, distinguished faculty, and strong commitment to undergraduate research.
Intern Duties
The Anthropology Division of the National Museum of Natural History will mentor students for an educational and career-building internship opportunity. Students will be paired with the most appropriate available sponsor at NMNH. Potential projects may fall in the categories of field, laboratory, or archival research in archaeology, biological, or cultural anthropology; collections development (researching a particular aspect of a collection to improve documentation or accessibility); or museum practice (likely research related to exhibit development). We will post information about the specific opportunities available for the upcoming summer as soon as it becomes available. To meet previous interns and read about their experience with NMNH see the bottom of this web page.
Internships are 10 weeks, timed to the UND summer schedule. Students will be supported with a stipend to help defray costs associated with transportation, housing, and meals.
Applying
To apply for the University of Notre Dame Anthropology Smithsonian Internship, please apply directly through the Natural History Research Experiences (https://naturalhistory.si.
- After being awarded a Smithsonian Internship, funding is available through ND Anthropology. Please provide information on any potential expenses and costs not funded through the SI Internship to anthro@nd.edu by April 5th, 2027 by 12pm.
Previous Intern Stories
Kate Kirwan, Summer 2026, Smithsonian Center for Folklife in Washington D.C.
During the summer of 2026, I had the opportunity to complete a joint internship with the American Anthropological Association and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. This experience, made possible by the Coss Family and the ND Anthropology department, allowed me to delve into the world of cultural heritage preservation while deepening my appreciation for the breadth and impact of anthropology.
My weeks were split between two days at the American Anthropological Association and three days at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. At the AAA, I had the opportunity to help shape and curate the annual meeting sessions, assist with section resource and support initiatives, and conduct archival research on the organization’s governance.
At the CFCH, I was lucky that my internship coincided with the 250th anniversary of the country, providing an inside look into how the Smithsonian was celebrating. Typically, the Center’s festival brings musicians, chefs, artisans, and other tradition bearers to the National Mall in DC for a week-long festival. This year’s festival, however, dubbed “The Festival of Festivals,” involved the CFCH collaborating with over 20 festivals around the country. Additionally, in the newly reopened Arts and Industries building, there was an artisan marketplace and daily lectures from Smithsonian Institution staff at various units on topics ranging from the Postal Museum to watershed health to a cow molded from butter on display at the Renwick Gallery!
My duties primarily include assisting with evaluation of the festival for future years’ knowledge, coordinating participant services for a mini-conference of museum professionals occurring at the Detroit location festival and shadowing an oral history project. The oral history project seeks to document individuals’ experiences from the 1976 festival. Shadowing this interview was a highlight for me as his testimony demonstrated to me the deep history of the festival and how its programming remains in the hearts and memories of visitors many years following.
I also had the chance to connect with various other Smithsonian Interns, tour the Capitol building with the CFCH senate liaison, and tour the National Museum of African Art Archives.
I am incredibly grateful for this experience that has further deepened my passion for cultural heritage, art, and anthropology writ-large. I leave this internship with a greater understanding of the work involved in preserving culture, as well as a renewed appreciation for the people and institutions dedicated to ensuring that these histories continue to be remembered and shared.
To read about Kate's experience you can follow her blog post in The American Anthropological Association's news.
Margaret Winter, Summer 2025, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
During the summer of 2025, I interned at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC with the support of Ms. Virginia Coss and the University of Notre Dame Department of Anthropology. My project was part of a larger research initiative led by Drs. Joshua Bell and Pascale Boucicaut called The Invisible Empire, which investigates U.S. imperialism and collecting practices between 1898 and 1934. Specifically, I worked with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collections, analyzing more than 5,000 catalog records from 1898-1946. I cleaned and consolidated data, created visualizations, and produced a draft catalog guide to serve as a resource for future researchers. Here is my final presentation, “NMNH Philippine Collections”.
In addition to the research project, I participated in the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), where I attended lectures and workshops with graduate students and visiting faculty from around the world. This experience expanded my awareness of what higher level research in museum collections entails, introduced me to the challenges of archival gaps and silences, and deepened my understanding of the overlaps between cultural anthropology and archaeology.
My time at the Smithsonian also offered a unique look into the inner workings of one of the world’s largest museums. Informal conversations with professionals about cultural resource management and graduate programs are now shaping my future career decisions. Overall, this internship gave me both practical skills in collections research and a broader perspective on how museums and archives engage with military activity, culture, and power. Thank you for the opportunity to attend SIMA and work on this project! I would wholeheartedly recommend it to any future students, and I’d be happy to talk with them about my experience.
Katharine Steffes, Summer 2025, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
In Summer 2025, I had the opportunity to intern at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. I contributed to Collecting the Invisible Empire, a research project led by Dr. Josh Bell and Dr. Pascale Boucicaut that investigates collections acquired during U.S. military interventions between 1898 and 1930. The broader project's goal is to help create a source catalog for future researchers by tracing the histories of specific objects. I became especially interested in materials linked to the Banana Wars,beginning my research with Honduras. This involved analyzing archival records, collection documentation, and the objects themselves to build a contextual understanding of how they entered the Smithsonian’s collections. Beyond this project, I attended lectures by visiting museum anthropologists and shadowed graduate researchers on their work, which gave me insight into the methods and challenges of museum-based anthropology. Through these experiences, I gained a deeper understanding of data collection in a museum context, the behind-the-scenes processes of exhibition development, and the critical decisions anthropologists face when interpreting and presenting collections.
Alyssa Miulli, Summer 2023, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
During the summer of 2023, I had the incredible opportunity to work under Dr. William Fitzhugh from the Smithsonian Institute to excavate a 16-17th century Basque whaling site on the island of Bonne Esperance. I experienced this journey along with students from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Montreal. The "American Quarter" of the team journeyed through New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Quebec to fully understand the history of the Lower North Shore. During this journey, we saw icebergs, whales, moose, and beautiful glacial fields. We spent a majority of the summer at St. Paul River, where the Whiteley Museum hosted our team. I learned so much about excavation techniques, Basque and Inuit cultures, as well as artifact cataloging and preservation. Along with conducting archaeology, Dr. Fitzhugh took our team to other heritage sites such as Red Bay, Port au Choix, and L'Anse aux Meadows so that we could understand the holistic history of the region. This internship not only taught me about the practices of archaeology, but also provided an opportunity to connect with the present culture of the Lower North Shore. The Whiteley Museum gave me the resources to create a film about this culture, which can be viewed here. I am incredibly grateful to the University of Notre Dame and Ms. Virginia Coss for providing this opportunity to me. It was truly an unforgettable experience, thank you!
Mia Ayer, Summer 2019, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
During my internship experience at the Smithsonian, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Sabrina Sholts, Dr. Andrea Eller, and Rita Austin in collecting data for a larger ongoing project called EMPHASIS (Environmental Mismatches in Primates and Humans: Anthropogenic Settings and Impacts Survey). This study largely focuses on how both humans and nonhuman primates are impacted by their environments, assessing differences in observed paleopathological markers across age, sex, and pathology categories. With the help of my wonderful supervisor Rita Austin and the collections manager Dave Hunt in the Museum Support Center, I was able to discern and recognize bony pathologies and gain a better general understanding of human anatomy in over 1200 individuals in the human Biological Anthropology collections, all of whom were from ~1200-1500 CE, pre-Spanish contact Peru. Using the collected data, I developed my own research questions to pursue and develop into a poster project, which I plan to continue researching as part of a thesis project. The project under the guidance of my mentors at the Smithsonian revolved around a bony pathology of the skull within the ear, called external auditory exostosis (EAE), which was relatively frequent in the Peruvian collections I surveyed. Specifically, I explored whether the pathological etiology aligned with previous studies asserting EAE is solely associated with water temperature, and analyzed my findings within a biocultural framework. Through this experience I was able to not only greatly round out my knowledge in biological anthropology, but open so many new doors and opportunities which pushed me to engage in the discipline in ways I had not considered before. The total immersion into such a driven and supportive team of people who are excited about anthropology really intensified my passion for the discipline- the relationships built during my time there will be lifelong.
Noémi Toroczkai, Summer 2019, St. Lawrence Gateways Project in Quebec
This summer I embarked on an incredible journey to the Arctic as an archaeological intern for the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Department. It was an experience of a lifetime, to say the least. I learned so much about the archaeological process, through the expertise of Dr. William Fitzhugh, an incredibly knowledgeable archaeologist who is known for his work in the Arctic. I lived on a 50-ft long boat named the Pitsiulak with two other interns from Dartmouth, our skipper Perry, two archaeologists with various specialties, and a crew of archaeological divers from the University of Montreal. While the divers went around looking for underwater sites and shipwrecks, the dig-team surveyed many areas along the northern coast of Quebec. We spent a lot of time excavating at two sites: Hart Chalet and Grand Isle. I learned many new skills such as how to use a trowel, how to map and record profiles, and how to map entire sites to scale on a piece of graphing paper. Through this internship I was able to explore an area of the world that is rarely frequented by anyone. I saw icebergs, whales, puffins, dolphins, historical Norse sites, and much, much more. I met and interacted with the local communities we visited and learned about what it is like to live in such environmentally unfavorable conditions year-round. I learned about Inuit history and Basque trading and whaling practices. This internship allowed me to form bonds with the rest of my team members that I know will last even after we all have parted ways. This was an experience of a lifetime, and I will always cherish the memories that come from it. I’m incredibly grateful for the support of Ms. Virginia Coss and her family for giving me the opportunity to have such a fruitful experience. Thank you so much!
