These 100-hour paid internships for high schoolers were made possible by the city’s One Providence for Youth grant, and the PITCH grant from the Governor’s Workforce Board. Community Action Partnership of Providence (CAPP) served as the employer of record for these internships, and worked with Providence Public Schools to onboard and support all students through the process. The RISD Museum hosted 4 high school seniors and thirteen 9th graders as part of this program, introducing them through hands-on projects to the work and skills of design and video production, as well as introducing them to the work, skills, and personal and career paths in preparation and installation.

The RISD Museum offers both summer and academic year internships in departments throughout the museum. All of our internships are paid positions.

The Andrew W. Mellon summer internship program introduces students to museum work and offers in-depth experience working in a specific department of the RISD Museum. Interns contribute to departmental projects with museum staff as supervisors. 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. This is designed as an introductory experience for students without prior experience or access to similar opportunities.

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. Each intern works closely with a staff mentor on a project relevant to their areas of interest. In addition, these interns participate in an educational component of the program, when they visit other institutions in their city as a cohort and have the opportunity to learn about other jobs in the field and to complete program assignments.

The Jean Segal Fain Memorial Summer Iinternship offers an undergraduate RISD student the chance to develop foundational skills in conservation, such as creating archival enclosures for a variety of materials and engaging in specialized design and fabrication for different 2D and 3D objects; participating in advanced-level work related to the framing of prints and objects for exhibitions; and identifying new systems for the organization, handling, and treatment of tools and materials. The intern builds skills and knowledge around the proper care and handling of valuable works of art under the supervision of one or more of the department’s conservators.

In conjunction with the RISD Museum’s acquisition of works by Gee’s Bend quilters Ruth Pettway Mosley and Sally Bennett Jones, we also partnered with the Souls Grown Deep Foundation to host one of the Foundation’s three paid internships offered annually to undergraduate students of color. These internships provide part-time professional experience at leading art museums during the academic year. Internships include a trip to visit the Foundation in Atlanta and the artists and communities it serves in the Southeast, including Gee's Bend, Alabama.

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.