Yellowstone National Park, Museum Internship, Summer 2025
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 previous summer 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. The stipend is provided to cover living expenses and, if applicable, part of the summer earnings expectation of the Office of Financial Aid.
The stipend is not intended to be, and is not, a paid, hourly wage. An internship is an educational and experiential learning opportunity intended for the student to apply their academics and gain real-world experience.
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.
A smaller part of the intern’s duties will cataloging of items from the museum collections, learning about preventative conservation of collections, and learn about library and archives operations.
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 and 100% indoor. (Interns can do a resource day with other programs, which could involve outdoor work, such as the archeology program).
The intern will be provided with direction from museum, archives or library staff. They will be mentored and
work in groups for exhibit installation and deinstallation as well as independently with exhibit design and
other projects. They will work under the direction of other teams members as well as in a group.
Staff will work indoors all day. Staff will work on the computer the majority of the time researching and
writing exhibit text labels and cataloging collections. Some of the days the intern will be in the collection
storage conducting inventories, assisting with preventative conservation rehousing collections,
conducting Integrated Pest Management or housekeeping. Every other week the intern will provide a tour of
the collections to the public. The intern will work with museum technicians, the registrar and the curator.
There will be two Bill Lane Center interns at Yellowstone in the summer of 2025. The other opportunity is the Bill Lane Center's Yellowstone National Park, Archaeology Program Internship.
The intern will work with other post graduate entry level professionals. There will be other interns and
young professionals in the building and organization.
Yellowstone Park hosts many employees and interns of college age, and has a Yellowstone Co-Op Employee Recreation Program which staff, interns and volunteers can participate in: https://ycerp.org
Housing:
Intern housing is provided and will be either in Gardiner, Montana or in Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming (Neither community is serviced by public transportation).
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.
Location:
Mammoth Hot Springs, WY is the headquarters of Yellowstone National Park and is a rural community not serviced by public transportation. In Mammoth Hot Springs, WY, there is a gas station, post office, medical clinic, hotel, two restaurants, and the Albright Visitor Center.
Five miles north of Mammoth is the town of Gardiner, Montana. Gardiner has all of the major amenities of a small town including, two gas stations, small market, 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.
Transportation:
A car during the internship is necessary in remote Montana/Wyoming because everything is far away and there is no public transportation. Housing will be within walking distance to work.
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.
- Exhibit research, writing, design and installation;
- Catalog museum objects;
- Assist with the park bookmobile;
- Conduct annual inventories;
- Clean stagecoaches.
Bill Lane Center internships are part of Cardinal Quarter opportunities and students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. The opportunities are full-time (40 hours a week) for 9-10 consecutive weeks during the summer.
Specific start and end dates during the summer 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.
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:
- Candidates must possess good organizational and analytical skills, and attention to detail.
- Strong written and oral communications skills are also important.
- Ideally, applicants will have interests in one or more fields of study related to the museum’s holdings (history, anthropology, environmental studies, etc.) and/or interest in conservation, information management or museum studies.
Desired Skills:
- Candidates must be willing to deal with the challenges of working in a beautiful but remote area.
- The intern should be comfortable living in a remote, rural area in a potential dormitory-style housing for 10 weeks.
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.
