The RISD Museum offers both summer and academic year internships in departments throughout the museum.

The Mellon summer internship program introduces students to museum work, offering in-depth experience working on departmental projects. As a cohort, interns discuss museum practice, build professional skills for working in the arts, and learn about how museums live up to their missions.

The RISD Museum also partners with the Studio Institute’s Arts Intern Program to offer full-time summer internships. This program provides opportunities for college undergraduates to learn about nonprofit professions through internships at museums and other cultural institutions.

The Jean Segal Fain Memorial Summer Internship offers an undergraduate RISD student the chance to develop foundational skills in conservation, building skills and knowledge around the proper care and handling of works on paper.

Offered by RISD’s Theory & History of Art & Design (THAD) Department, these fellowships invite RISD students in the THAD concentration to work on a semester-long project supported by museum staff in place of a course requirement.

The Spalter Teaching Fellowship is open to RISD and Brown graduate and undergraduate students from all disciplinary backgrounds. Spalter Fellows educators, teaching and working with children and youth ages 5 to 18. They undergo rigorous training with RISD Museum’s educators, who introduce them to the museum’s collection and pedagogy. Fellows support learning from works of art in the collection and the development critical thinking, problem solving, and creative interpretation.

The Joan Hall and Mark Weil Conservation Fund Fellowship is open to undergraduate students from any institution and all disciplinary backgrounds. The Hall/Weil Fellow receives professional conservation training from the museum’s objects conservator to introduce them to collections care and preventive conservation practices.

The museum participates in RISD’s Graduate Studies Research Assistantship Program, allowing selected graduate students to work in the museum during the academic year. Opportunities range from curatorial to museum education, installation, digital content, and graphic design, providing students insight into potential career paths in museums. RISD's Graduate Studies Department administers the program.

Many departments in the museum host work/study opportunities for RISD students throughout the year. Students work for a variety of reasons, whether to meet the basic costs of a RISD education or to learn/improve their skills and work habits.

These assistantships, administered by Brown University, offer graduate students pursuing a PhD in Brown's History of Art and Architecture Department the opportunity to gain experience in the museum field. Proctors are matched to curatorial departments based on their fields of study and learn the ins and outs of museum work over the course of the academic year.

The Museum Guild is a group of undergraduate students from local colleges and universities who work toward representation, inclusion, and advocacy for student voices in the museum space. Working as a group and with the guidance of the museum’s Academic Programs staff, they develop projects and programs that highlight student interests and promote diversity and community engagement while creating critical dialogue around the RISD Museum’s collection.

The Dorner Prize is awarded annually to RISD undergraduate and graduate students for temporary, site-specific projects at the RISD Museum. These artistic interventions may take the form of physical, digital, or programmatic encounters, that examine or critique the museum’s historical and contemporary contexts, collections, architectural idiosyncrasies, habits of visitation, and/or web presence.

The Henry Luce Curatorial Fellowship provides the opportunity for an outstanding scholar to assist in the interpretation and care of the RISD Museum’s Native North American collection through active engagement in provenance research, cataloging, building a network of experts and tribal representatives, reviewing storage and display requirements, and creating interpretation and programming based on this work.

The Nancy Elizabeth Prophet Fellowship at the RISD Museum is a 2-year, full-time position for artists and scholars embarking on careers in the arts and considering the museum profession and the roles museums play in an increasingly diverse society. Named in honor of Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, an artist of Narragansett and African heritage and RISD’s first known graduate of color, this program provides significant professional-practice opportunities to high-achieving college and graduate school alumni up to 3 years post-graduation.

Each calendar year, the museum invites local artists and designers working in any medium to apply for our Research Residency for Artists (formerly known as our Artist Fellowship). One selected artist receives a stipend, professional development support, and the opportunity to work closely with our collections and staff members to realize a proposed project rooted in object-based research. The fellow has access to a range of resources at RISD, including support from museum staff and access to RISD faculty, technicians, and libraries. In collaboration with Museum staff, the fellow also has opportunities to share their work with the public through talks, demonstrations, performances, publications, or other formats.

Together with RISD Academic Affairs, the museum offers RISD faculty members a limited number of 2-year fellowships as residents in a curatorial department. The fellowships provide faculty members across disciplines the opportunity for in-depth research in the collection to enhance their work and teaching practices. They also provide an avenue for engaging in the day-to-day life of the museum.

The Mellon Curatorial Fellowship is a three-year position for an outstanding junior scholar who wishes to pursue a curatorial career. The Mellon Fellow is fully integrated into the RISD Museum’s Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and participates in strengthening the Museum’s engagement with the academic curricula at Brown University and RISD. The fellow supervises the department’s active study room and acts as the primary liaison between the department and faculty teaching from the collections, including making regular presentations to classes. They undertake research in their area of expertise, leading to an exhibition to be presented in the third year.