Research, Internship, and Career Opportunities in Anthropology

Our department is committed to supporting our majors gaining first-hand, practical experience, both during the academic year and school breaks. You can see some of our students' past projects here. The department faculty are available to discuss on- and off-campus opportunities in their fields of anthropology, including working on projects with our faculty where possible. We maintain a database, available to our majors and minors upon declaring, of summer research, internships, and fieldwork opportunities across all four fields of anthropology, in the US and abroad, as well as in related disciplines (e.g., in museum and collections settings), as well as various funding options for supporting the students' ideas and projects. We have been very successful in helping our majors fund their experiences though departmental, Bi-Co, and external funding sources.  

Internships and Externships

Bryn Mawr offers many opportunities for undergraduate students wishing to conduct research and engage in internships or externships, both during the academic year and during school breaks. Because of the four-field coverage of our Anthropology department, we are uniquely positioned at the intersection of humanistic social sciences and natural sciences, giving our majors access to the full range of College-supported opportunities. Anthropology majors have been awarded numerous fellowships, such as the Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, the Hanna Holborn Gray Research Fellowship, Humanities/Social Science Summer Program (for sociocultural and linguistic anthropology projects), STEM Summer Science Research (for biological anthropology and anthropological archaeology projects), and Special Collections Internships, among others. We have also supported our students from Haverford getting summer funding through their Self-Designed Internships and Summer Research Fellowships. 

Funding Opportunities

The Undergraduate Deans Office has funding opportunities during the academic year in support of student research projects, including presenting their research at conferences, all of which our majors regularly use to support their independent and senior thesis research. The College’s Career and Civic Engagement Center is also an excellent resource for students searching for academic year or summer funding for research, internships, activism, and other work opportunities, as well as experiential learning opportunities. Our faculty regularly participate in College-wide academic programs with hands-on components, such as the Praxis Program and the interdisciplinary 360 Course Clusters. 

The AnthroGuide 

Beyond the Bi-Co and specific to Anthropology, the AnthroGuide, maintained by the American Anthropological Association, has a search function where students and scholars can find internships, field experiences, and other opportunities. The American Association of Biological Anthropologists supports several student programs open to undergraduates. Research opportunities may also be found through the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates sites for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (make sure to search the directory for "anthropology").