As part of the RCN, the U. S. National Science Foundation has funded two types of student internships. These internships will fund students who are working on best practices in natural history collections curation and interdisciplinary research using collections. The Society for Preservation of Natural History Collections will supervise the best practices interns and the RCN Steering Committee will supervise the research interns.

Available Internships

CollectionsWeb is pleased to announce the availability of a research internship in collections-based research. The interns can be housed at any institution in the U.S. and supervised by any appropriate mentor. The purpose of the internships is to train students, create collaborations among museums and labs from different institutions, encourage the development of new tools and foster diversity. The research focus should include some component of collections-based study and should be interdisciplinary in nature.

Two internships are available and each will be paid $4000 in financial support. To apply, the student should send a brief (1-2 page) proposal and current CV, along with a supporting letter from the mentor, to:

Karen Francl

All proposals will be reviewed by the CollectionsWeb Steering Committee. Applications accepted through March 31, 2011.

 

Previously Awarded Internships (Summer 2010)

Rebecca Jana worked with Paul Tinerella at the Illinois Natural History Survey on "The ticks (Acari: Ixodoidea) of Illinois: An WWW resource for specimen occurence data, faunistics, and epidemiological associations" and Melissa Barton worked with Elizabeth Leith and Marcia Revelez at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on developing an overview of best practices in natural history collections to aid the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections in planning for research into best practices.