Summer 2026 graduate-level conservation internship at Shelburne Museum
Listing Start Date: December 18, 2025Expires: February 15, 2026n
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT, is offering a paid 10 week summer work project for a student currently enrolled in a conservation graduate program with an interest in textile conservation and/or objects conservation. The intern will undertake projects related to preparing hooked rugs for exhibition, cleaning one of the painted canvas panels with painted wood frames from the Museum’s 1902 Dentzel carousel, participate in a variety of preventive conservation projects related to integrated pest management and environmental data collection and analysis, and contribute to a growing reference collection of hair and plant fiber microscope images.
Shelburne Museum, located outside of Burlington, Vermont and nestled between the Green and Adirondack Mountains, displays its collection within 39 historic vernacular buildings and purpose-built structures on 40 landscaped acres. The intern will join a team of three conservators in the conservation lab: an objects conservator who also serves as the department director, a textile conservator, and a preventive conservator. More information about Shelburne Museum’s conservation lab can be found here: www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/…
The intern will be paid a stipend of $8,000 and an onboarding allowance of $6,000 to help defray the costs of housing and transportation. It is strongly recommended that the intern have their own vehicle as options for public transportation, while available, are extremely limited.
The internship would commence in June 2026, but the actual start and end dates are negotiable.
Interested individuals should send a cover letter, CV, and contact information for 3 references (a maximum of 2 from academia) to Nancie Ravenel at nravenel@shelburnemuseum.org by February 15, 2026. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States.
Shelburne Museum is an equal opportunity employer and gives consideration for employment to qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, or because of marital, parental, or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. If you’d like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant under the law, please download the EEO brochure to view your rights.