Internships offer hands-on experience in curatorial, museum, and other research settings that can provide training for disciplinary skills and for future careers. In the context of doctoral study, internships should provide students with meaningful, impactful work that allows them to grow while contributing to the host site.
The Smart Museum of Art’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Curatorial Internship provides mentorship, opportunities, and resources for a graduate student to conduct substantive collections research and contribute meaningfully to museum projects and initiatives. Creatively and critically integrating the Smart’s collection into campus and community life is a central aim of the internship, and applicants are encouraged to bring their individual background, scholarly interests, and disciplinary experiences to the position. The internship is open to advanced graduate students who have finished their coursework and, ideally, are in the late stages of the dissertation. Applications are announced in the Spring of the preceding academic year. For more information, contact the Director of the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry.
Each year, the Department of Art History nominates one to two of its advanced graduate students to serve as a COSI Curatorial Research Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago. The COSI Fellow will work on substantive on-going or discrete projects that will involve the student in museum work such as collecting, storing, exhibiting, and/or conserving art. In rare cases, a student may hold one of the two curatorial fellowships at another institution, especially at another local museum.
The PhD Advance internship program at UChicagoGRAD invites UChicago PhD students to create a 300-hour internship with an organization of their choosing, anywhere around the world. Successful applicants will receive a $6,000 stipend to support their pursuit of the opportunity. UChicago PhD students can receive UChicagoGRAD internship funding twice during their time at UChicago.
Chicago art and cultural institutions that offer internships:
Institutions in other U.S. cities:
Department of Art History
Division of the Humanities
166 Cochrane Woods Art Center
5540 South Greenwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
