Yellowstone National Park, Museum Internship, Summer 2024
Every summer, The Bill Lane Center for the American West offers many opportunities for Stanford undergraduates (including graduating seniors and co-terms) to work with organizations throughout the West. Through these internships, students can explore careers in natural history, conservation, land use, museum curation, resource management, energy and more.
All internships are full-time for nine to ten weeks during the summer. They are fully funded by the Lane Center with stipends ranging from $7,500 to $10,000.
The Lane Center has placed hundreds of interns in positions across the West since 2005. It has developed strong relationships with host organizations and works hard to ensure interns have successful and enriching experiences.
For more information about the internship program, please visit the FAQs page, or email Education Manager Corinne Thomas.
Details about the summer 2023 cohort of student interns and their placements can be found here.
Student reflections about the internship experience can be found by visiting the Out West student blog and the Lane Center Instagram channel.
Stipend Information:
The Bill Lane Center will provide a base stipend of $7,500 with additional funding for student financial aid and location, if applicable, up to $10,000.
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a federal background investigation prior to beginning work with the National Park Service. This required NACI background check process for access to DOI buildings and computers is a standard background check for federal employees, interns, and volunteers who will not have access to classified information. International students are not eligible; Interns must be U.S. citizens.
Description of the Agency and an Internship Overview:
The mission of the Yellowstone Heritage & Research Center is to acquire, preserve, and make available the historic cultural and natural science objects, archives and library materials that document the world's first national park. And it is the same as the National Park Service's Organic Act of 1916: "... to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
The internship at Yellowstone offers experience working with museum collections from the world’s first National Park. Located in America’s greatest concentration of hydrothermal features and diverse megafauna viewing, the intern will be exposed to once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The intern will have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of museum collections, ranging from natural history specimens, photographs, historic vehicle collection and archeological collections.
The Heritage & Research Center protects and preserves the natural and cultural heritage of Yellowstone National Park, while providing access, education, and entertainment to the public. The museum, archives and library are owned by the public and for the public! We collect all things related to Yellowstone's history: archival, archeological, ethnographic, historic, biologic, paleontological, and geological collections.
The intern will be exposed to a broad spectrum of museum activities and will have the opportunity for independent, team, and direct mentored work, depending on the task. Examples include cataloging of original objects (independent); exhibit research, design, and installation (team); and seasonal museum object transport and maintenance (direct with supervisor). They will work with the professional archives staff, professional library staff, other interns and seasonal staff.
Day-to-day work will involve research and development behind museum exhibits, researching the database and peering in museum cases to conduct annual inventories, as well as cleaning historic vehicles.
The intern's primary duty will be to design and install a small museum exhibit with items from the collections, which are thematically linked and can be presented historiographically to create a narrative for the viewer. The exhibit will be on women in Yellowstone, building upon last year's interns work.
A smaller part of the intern’s duties will cataloging of items from the museum collections, such as historic postcards, photographs, early souvenirs, natural history specimens and artwork.
Additionally, the intern will present the museum collection section of public facility tours and assist researchers with onsite and distance reference queries.
Finally, the intern will assist with annual inventory reporting, preservation and rehousing activities, and exhibit maintenance.
Internship Work Environment:
This is an in-person internship.
The intern will work as part of a team with the majority of the work indoors. There will be cross training opportunities that may either be outdoors or in an office. Gain experience working with a diverse team of cultural resource managers: archeologists, archivists, librarians, and historian.
Housing:
Intern housing is provided in Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming, five miles south of Gardiner, Montana.
No family housing is available for this internship. Housing is in a shared setting with common living room, kitchen and bathroom facilities in a furnished house or small dormitory-style building.
Each intern will have their own sleeping quarters. Each person is responsible for cleaning their own space and common areas, as well as removal of all trash and recycling. There are laundry facilities onsite.
Pets are not allowed in shared government housing.
Transportation:
Access to a car during the internship is required as the park has no public transportation and the HRC is located six miles from park housing. It will be necessary to have a car for traveling the expansive distances in Montana and Wyoming.
There will be two Bill Lane Center interns at Yellowstone in the summer of 2024. The other opportunity is the Bill Lane Center's Yellowstone National Park, Archaeology Program Internship.
Gardiner has all of the major amenities of a small town including, gas stations, grocery store, drug store, bank, restaurants, bars, churches, library, hotels, and post office. 52 miles north of Gardiner is the city of Livingston, Montana and Bozeman, Montana is 26 miles west of Livingston.
Location: Gardiner, Montana (housing is provided in Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming).
- Exhibit ressearch, writing, design and installation;
- Cataloging original objects;
- Assist with the park bookmobile;
- Conduct annual inventories;
- Clean historic vehicles.
Bill Lane Center internships are part of Cardinal Quarter opportunities and students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. The opportunities are full-time (35-40 hours a week) for 9-10 consecutive weeks during the summer.
Specific start and end dates can be coordinated directly with the supervisor.
All undergraduates of any year, including graduating seniors, are eligible. Graduating seniors are eligible only if they are graduating in spring quarter. Students who have already graduated, e.g., fall or winter quarter of this academic year are not eligible.
Coterms are eligible only if they hold undergraduate status.
For more application advice, please visit the BLC’s FAQs page.
Please note:
- Students are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise) during this full-time, summer internship.
- Student athletes should confirm the impact of any awarded stipend on their athletic eligibility by contacting the Compliance Services Office prior to committing to an internship.
- New Stipend Policy per the U.S. Department of Education: A stipend is considered a resource and it may have an impact on a student’s financial aid. To comply with US Department of Education regulations, student payments, awards, prizes, and gifts that are made available to the student because they are a Stanford student, must be reported to the Financial Aid Office. The Financial Aid Office is responsible for the disbursement of stipend funds to undergraduates. For more information, please visit the Financial Aid Office's webpage about the student stipend policy.
Application Guidelines for this Internship:
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a federal background investigation prior to beginning work with the National Park Service. This required NACI background check process for access to DOI buildings and computers is a standard background check for federal employees, interns, and volunteers who will not have access to classified information. International students are not eligible; Interns must be U.S. citizens.
This is a very remote internship so students must be independent.
The program is designed for undergraduates beginning to explore career options, so frosh through seniors are welcome to apply.
Required Skills:
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Interest in pursuing a career in the curatorial field
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The intern must be able to work carefully with historic museum pieces, and must have an interest in researching the history of these items.
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The intern must be comfortable living in a national park. Internet access and cell phone service within Yellowstone are limited.
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The successful intern will also be required to complete a background investigation in order to have access to the program’s government-networked computers.
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Physical activity includes a lot of walking, stair climbing, lifting, bending and cleaning.
Desired Skills:
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Some knowledge of the history of Yellowstone and/or of the American West is recommended.
Selection of applicants:
Complete applications are screened and finalists are contacted for a first-round interview with staff from the Bill Lane Center for the American West.
The top candidates for the position are then forwarded to the organization for second-round interviews with their potential supervisor and other staff.
Host organizations will then notify the Lane Center of their preferred candidate and that applicant will receive an internship offer from the Bill Lane Center by email.
The applicant is expected to respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to the offer or the offer will be rescinded.
Once an applicant accepts an offer, they are required to promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and withdraw their candidacy from those other opportunities.