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Applicant
Information
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Updated:
27 June 2008
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PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Interns are sought to assist with the Department of Anthropology's
efforts to document and publish information about circumpolar
anthropology. We are publishing a series of books on circumpolar
anthropology and would like assistance with the production
effort. We are also in the midst of refreshing our 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Help the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) Marine Invertebrate
Collection, which comprises nearly 19 million specimens, transform
into a modern, primarily web based, resource that's easily
accessible to a vast and diverse audience (e.g., scholars,
general public, policy makers, conservation groups). All Antarctic
invertebrate materials, including literature and specimen
label and photographic data will be digitized, sorted, and
catalogued online so as to be accessible through taxonomic,
geographic, and keyword searches. This project is part of
the upcoming International Polar Year (IPY) pan-institutional
activities across the Smithsonian. The main goal of this project
is to develop a state of the art, one-stop Antarctic invertebrate
web site that will facilitate and accelerate the sharing of
information for a variety of educational purposes, scientific
analyses, mapping of taxa distributions, biogeographical studies,
and provide policy makers with key information useful for
biological conservation. This kind of digital reorganization
is unprecedented at the Smithsonian, and will become a model
for the modernization of other collections within the Smithsonian
and around the world. Moving valuable data out of collections
storage and into electronic access on the internet thereby
providing accessibility for remote and international research
is an important looming challenge for scientific collections
everywhere. The USAP project is pioneering this critical next
step in collections-based research. Interns will assist Smithsonian
curators and staff as well as visiting scientists. They will
be trained in modern collection management practices and collections-based
research, including curation and care of specimens, database
work and literature review, and will participate in testing
and input during website design and construction. 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The National Museum of Natural History is seeking interns
and volunteers to work with the Fish Illustration Collection.
The Fish Illustration Collection is located at the Museum
Support Center (MSC) in Suitland, Maryland and contains original
art, photographs and other visual works depicting various
fish species found throughout the world. The collection spans
a time of more than 150 years and contains images that document
live fish characteristics, such as color and other external
anatomical features that may not be distinguished in preserved
specimens. Interns and volunteers are needed to: rehouse the
illustrations following preservation procedures; perform a
detailed cataloging and inventory of the collection using
a database; and reproduce original works in digital format
for a myriad of imaging products.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will scan scientific reprints as archival copies;
filing reprints into the Crustacea Library collection.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will translate original species descriptions from
Spanish, French, German, and Latin to English for mollusk
species listed on 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The Department of Entomology is seeking an intern to sort,
label, and database identified longhorned woodboring beetles.
Intern(s) are needed on a somewhat regular basis, especially
during the summer. Intern(s) will see what few visitors see
and will gain a new appreciation for insect diversity!
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
This goal of this project is to produce a digital taxonomic
image library of new species of tumbling flower beetles (Coleoptera:
Mordellidae) for the Ecuador Canopy Biodiversity Project.
This research began in 1994 to monitor the effects of road
construction and oil extraction on the insect fauna of Yasuni
National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and has resulted in
the discovery of an incredible diversity of arboreal beetles.
As an intern on this project you will receive hands-on training
from SI Entomology staff on curating and imaging pinned beetle
specimens using our new GT Vision Extended Focus Imaging (Auto-Montage)
microscopy system. Your job will be to compile the final images
for Mordellidae, along with accompanying taxonomic information
for each species, into a PowerPoint presentation or set of
web pages formatted for the Encyclopedia of Life. Optional
training is available on scientific illustration, including
digital techniques using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
If you have multi-media or communications experience you can
use this opportunity to write a popular science article, blog,
or podcast about the project to share with the public
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Flies, mosquitoes, gnats, etc., members of the insect order
Diptera, represent 10% of the known diversity of Life, some
150,000 species, and are of critical importance to us as they
are disease vectors, pollinators, model organisms for research,
biological control agents, and plant pests. Their classification
and names are essential for information management. Be a part
of the team building a modern online index to these flies.
Become acquainted with all aspects of our BDWD and then finalize
a twig on our tree of knowledge for flies. Some work may be
boring, such as data entry or filing of papers, but local
field work to collect and document flies will add variety.
See us on the web at 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will assist the USGS staff in the Division of Mammals
with their recuration of the genus Mus in their newly
renovated state-of-the-art compacted storage room within the
National Museum of Natural History. Stuffed skins and skulls
of over 8,000 specimens need to be individually inventoried
against the database and labels need to be updated to reflect
currently accepted nomenclature. Help with additional associated
tasks, such as the relabeling of drawers and cases to reflect
changes is also needed.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will scan literature dealing with taxonomy and
biology of worms in the phylum Nemertea. The NEMERTES web
site is intended to serve as a relatively comprehensive knowledge-base
for specialists, other professionals, and students interested
in an important but understudied phylum of marine worms. Much
of the most important literature is old and difficult to access.
We are providing access to that by scanning and posting it
as PDFs. Nemertean worms are predators and occupy all marine
habitats, as well as some terrestrial and freshwater habitats.
Despite their ecological significance and potential importance
in understanding animal evolution, this particular phylum
of worms tends to be ignored because they are very difficult
to work with and to identify, and getting access to existing
information is exceedingly difficult. Consequently, there
are few specialists and becoming one is very difficult. The
Nemertes web site is intended to make information more widely
and more easily available, so that beginning specialists can
train themselves effectively and specialists as well as non-specialists
can work more efficiently with these worms. The site is built
around a comprehensive literature database indexed and linked
to a taxonomy database, which in turn is linked to image,
glossary, and geographic locality databases. There already
are several hundred PDFs associated with this literature.
These PDFs have become the most appreciated part of the site.
This is an opportunity for someone to make a significant contribution
to advancing access to our knowledge about the world¹s
biological diversity.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) calls for
a preliminary assessment list of the conservation status of
all known plant species. The student will use specimen data
from the U.S. National Herbarium to investigate and analyze
preliminary conservation assessments on select plant families.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will work on transferring plant DNA samples into
bar coded tubes, for long term storage. An Excel spreadsheet
matching bar codes to voucher and other information would
be produced. Supervision would be provided by Botany Department
staff members Zimmer. Interns working for longer periods of
time would have the opportunity to perform DNA extractions
and gel electrophoresis.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The intern will scan, edit and convert to pdf files Crustacea
publications (reprints or part of a bound volume or book).
Many useful and important publications are often requested
by colleagues and students; however, some are in limited quantity
or are in very poor condition. Converting these publications
to PDF format will make them readily available to the requester.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Interns will work directly in the US National Herbarium to
extract specimens collected on the US Exploring Expedition
as well as conduct research online, and in libraries and archives
to resolve gaps in the specimen data record. Interns are also
needed to enumerate specimens that have already been located
to maintain organization of specimen data. Other opportunities
include managing the growing Wilkes collection and transcribing
historical documents including some data-entry is required.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
In this project you will file mounted plant specimens into
the U.S. National Herbarium collections. Herbarium specimens
are generally mounted on 11x17 sheets of archival paper and
filed according to a specific sequence, similar to library
books in a library. 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Assist with a variety of collections management tasks relating
to botanical specimens, including (but not limited to) sorting
National Cancer Institute herbarium specimen vouchers, filing
newly mounted or return loan specimens, mounting cryptograms
or phanerogam specimens, processing outgoing exchange, etc.
Some of the work will be at the Museum Support Center (MSC)
located in Suitland, Maryland and some will be at the Herbarium
located on the National Mall. The number/variety of tasks
will depend on whether the student is interested in interning
full or part time and the number of weeks available. Tasks
are suitable for part or full time person and for long or
short amounts of time. 
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
The development of a database for the Lepidoptera type collection
- this would entail primarily library research (given the
name of the species, the author, and the year of publication,
the intern will use the Zoological Record and/or Lepidoptera
reprint files to track down the original citations/descriptions
of the species); the intern will also assist in development
of database and in data entry.
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION:
Projects focus on activities of the Invertebrate Zoology
collections and include opportunities for high school level
students as well as undergraduates. Options include: 1.
gathering information from jars of specimens in ETOH (alcohol).
Additional information will then be collected from a variety
of archival sources then entered into a specimen database.
2. Scanning and manipulating black and white line drawings
using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Some training
provided. Applicants should already be computer literate.
3. Producing Literature Cited section for long and short
manuscripts by extracting information from existing databases
and formatting if for the appropriate journal. 4. Organizing
publications for a specialized library. Some knowledge of
foreign languages is helpful for this, but not absolutely
required. Target work hours are 8:15 - 4:45. NOTE: contact
speaks Spanish and would have no difficulty working with
a Spanish-speaking intern.