Employment
Employment vacancy announcements are posted here when available. Find more opportunities on the Smithsonian’s Office Human Resources website. See positions open at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
We are currently accepting proposals for the following:
Positions for the 2025 Festival have been filled. If you have questions about your application, please email FestivalJobs@si.edu.
Internships
We welcome interns for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival year-round, although the bulk of the work is in the summer. In the fall, winter, and spring, interns assist with research and planning for the upcoming Festival’s programs—best suited for students in anthropology, ethnomusicology, library science, and museum and language studies as related to the program.
In the summer, we also seek interns to work on event production, technical crew, the Festival Marketplace, social media, web production, graphic design, foodways, curatorial team, the Festival Blog, public relations, accessibility, participant and volunteer coordination, video production, documentation, and administration.
Summer interns are expected to work through the ten days of the Festival during the last week of June and first week of July, including weekends and the July Fourth holiday. You should be comfortable working outdoors in high heat and humidity, in a fast-paced environment among large crowds of people.
Internships are open to undergraduate, graduate, and upper-level high-school students, as well as non-students. They can be from six weeks to one year, full- or part-time, though working at least fifteen to twenty hours per week is preferred. Selected applicants will need to undergo a background check.
Stipends are available for some internships. College students in relevant fields may be able to arrange course credit and/or financial compensation. The Festival is unable to cover transportation and housing costs for interns.
Specialized Internships
Rinzler Archives Summer Internship
This internship in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is made possible through the generous support of the Scott and Dorothy Odell Internship Fund. The mentorship goals include working with archives staff to apply collections management best practices in arranging, describing, and digitizing collections, which consist of papers, photographs, audio recordings, audiovisual media, and managing digital assets. The intern may also work with connecting archival content in our Digital Asset Management System to the public and contribute to finding aids that meet current archival descriptive standards and are Encoded Archival Description compatible using ArchivesSpace (ASpace).
The internship can also be tailored to incorporate a research component exploring the intersections between archival policy and practice, and ethical collections care informed by the Center’s Shared Stewardship of Collections Policy. The collections include curatorial, ethnographic, and programmatic content associated with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the nonprofit record label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the work of our Cultural Sustainability team, and the efforts of our Research and Education department.
This internship is for current or recent graduate students in one or more of the following fields: library and information science, museum studies, folklore, public history, anthropology, or ethnomusicology. Applicants should also demonstrate knowledge of or interest in ethnographic research, archival processing and description, digitization, digital curation, preservation, and/or digital asset management. In your essay, please describe how an internship in the Rinzler Archives can help you in pursuing a career in the cultural heritage field.
The deadline for the 2025 summer internship is March 1. The selected applicant will receive a stipend of $700/week for a full-time, ten-week internship.
Women at the Wheel: Lowrider Culture Internship
We are seeking an intern with an interest in lowrider and/or car culture, or, more broadly, Chicanx/Latinx visual or material culture, to support the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Youth and the Future of Culture program. The “Lowrider Culture” program area will explore the multigenerational reach of lowrider culture, presenting activities that explore the intersection of youth culture, popular culture, ethnic heritage, creativity, technological innovation, vocational training, and concerns for environmental sustainability. Read the full internship description.
The intern will receive a $11,920 stipend for a full-time, ten-week internship, from June 9 to August 15, with some flexibility with dates. The application deadline is March 1.
This internship stipend received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
Making Matters: Women in the Building Trades Internship
We are seeking an intern with an interest in traditional craftsmanship and/or folk and traditional arts and material culture to support the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Youth and the Future of Culture program. The “Next Generation Artisans in the Traditional Building Trades” program area will feature participants from a broad range of traditional trades training programs and historic preservation advocacy initiatives, highlighting the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, skill, and cultural heritage. Read the full internship description.
The intern will receive a $11,920 stipend for a full-time, ten-week internship, from June 9 to August 15, with some flexibility with dates. The application deadline is March 1.
This internship stipend received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
Folklife Storytellers Workshop
The Folklife Storytellers Workshop offers a professional skill-building and exchange experience for students and recent graduates interested in producing multimedia content for Folklife Magazine, the Folklife Festival Blog, and social media channels. The 2025 workshop will focus on storytelling from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival program, Youth and the Future of Culture.
Interns participate in one-on-one story meetings with editors and cultural experts and a weekly workshop to learn and share techniques of interviewing, creative nonfiction writing, and media production in a highly supportive atmosphere. Storytellers then put these concepts to good use through multiple drafts before completing their work for final consideration. Interns critique each other’s work and receive the personal attention of editors. See the full internship description.
The 2025 workshop will be full-time and in person in Washington, D.C., from June to August 2025 and part-time September to November 2025. Applicants should express interest in one of two tracks: Social Media & Video Editing or Writing. Applications for 2025 are due April 1.
How to Apply
To apply online, visit solaa.si.edu and create an account. After selecting Internship, specify the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the programs or projects you are most interested in. You will be asked to upload supporting materials, including an essay, résumé, transcripts, and letters of recommendation.
The submission deadline for summer internships, with some exceptions, is March 1. There are no deadlines for getting applications in for the rest of the year. The completed application should be submitted at least six weeks before the start of the internship.
If you have questions, please contact intern coordinator Arlene Reiniger at ReinigerA@si.edu.
More internships at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
