Yale Peabody Museum Announces Paid Summer Internships for Yale Students!

February 3, 2020

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (YPM) is delighted to offer an expanded summer internship program for Yale undergraduate students! Interns will participate in the rich variety of research taking place in the Yale Science Hill community, and will work on a semi-independent project with one or more advisors using the Yale Peabody Museum’s diverse collections and resources. Included in the list below is one internship that is jointly sponsored by Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution.

The cohort of students selected for YPM summer internships will convene twice before the end of exams in early May for an orientation and introduction to the program, and to discuss expectations. Students will also be expected to contribute written material for the Museum’s website in the form of a blog, annotated photo essay, or more formal final report.

All internships are 8 weeks long unless otherwise noted.

Summer 2020 Internship Projects

Click on the titles below for project descriptions and stipend amounts. Contact the listed advisor or the Director of Student Programs for more information.

Assessing Plant Specimen Collecting Bias

Advisor: Patrick Sweeney (Senior Collections Manager, YPM Division of Botany)

Development of High-Throughput Methods for Mass 3D Digitization of Natural History Collections

Advisor: Nelson Rios (YPM Head of Biodiversity Informatics and Data Science)

Digging Deeper: Showcasing the Untold Story of Fossil Vertebrates

Advisor: Vanessa R. Rhue (Collections Manager, YPM Division of Vertebrate Paleontology)

Exhibitions Interpretation

Advisor: Kailen Rogers (YPM Assistant Director of Exhibitions)

Functional Limb Morphology of Earliest Paleocene Mammals from the Bug Creek Anthills, Northeastern Montana

Advisors: Professor Eric Sargis (YPM Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology), Professor Stephen Chester, Brooklyn College (YPM VP curatorial affiliate) and Spencer Irvine (YPM VP graduate student)

Investigating the History and Technology Behind 500 Years of Scientific Instruments

Advisor: Alexi Baker (Collections Manager, YPM Division of History of Science and Technology)

Managing a Teaching Collection: Education

Advisors: Nicole Palffy-Muhoray (Assistant Director, YPM Student Programs) and Erin Gredell (Registrar, YPM)

Patterns of Speciation in the Longnose Darter Complex, Percina nasuta

Advisor: Professor Tom Near (YPM Curator of Vertebrate Zoology)

Phylogeography of Blue Ridge Endemic Freshwater Fishes

Advisor: Professor Tom Near (YPM Curator of Vertebrate Zoology)

Revisiting Ancient Reefs in the Glass Mountains, Texas

Advisor: Susan Butts (Senior Collections Manager, YPM Division of Invertebrate Paleontology)

Species Boundaries among Indomalayan Pencil-tailed Tree Mice (Rodentia, Muridae) from Southeast Asia

Yale/Smithsonian Joint Internship

Advisors: Professor Eric Sargis (YPM Curator of Mammalogy and Vertebrate Paleontology), Dr. Melissa Hawkins (USNM-SI Curator of Mammals), and Dr. Neal Woodman (USGS Research Biologist and USNM-SI Research Associate in Vertebrate Zoology)

Information and to Apply

CLICK HERE for the general application form. Please note: you will need to supply the names and contact information of two academic references who are willing to be contacted before the end of March.

Application Deadline: Monday, February 17, 2020. Applications will be accepted after that date on a rolling basis - if after February 17, check with the Director of Student Programs to see if specific internships are filled. Questions? Contact David Heiser, Director of Student Programs: david.heiser@yale.edu