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This project has greatly improved my analytical skills and let me focus on developing a way to transfer my skills to a material culture outside my main research area. This was particularly rewarding as I was able to engage with Southwest Native American culture and develop connections to my research focused on Pharaonic Egypt.
The Museum Assistantship Program offers paid semester- and year-long assistantship opportunities for Penn post-bacc, graduate, and professional students to work on projects within the Penn Museum. The program pairs Museum projects in need of research assistance with interested graduate students from related fields.
Applicants may apply to no more than two of the projects listed below.
Prior to completing the application form, you should prepare a brief (no more than 500 words) statement that addresses:
All accepted participants will be notified by late May.
This program is open to active University of Pennsylvania post-bacc, graduate, and professional students, enrolled for the upcoming Fall Semester.
Assistants are paid $17 an hour and should expect to commit 2 to 5 hours per week to their project.
Assistants should expect to commit 2 to 5 hours per week. Exact start and end dates will be determined by the project supervisors. Projects take place during the fall or spring semesters, or both.
There are several Whole Mouth Jars from the site of Beth Shemesh in the collection, one of which has managed to remain unnumbered for years. The Museum Assistant who undertakes this project will work primarily in Archives, going through the field registers from the site to create a catalogue of the excavated WMJs from the site in order for us to match up ours with its proper field information.
This project is ideal for someone who has or is looking to get experience with archival records. Previous knowledge of what a whole mouth jar looks like is essential in order to perform this project in one semester over 20 hours.
The result of this project is to get the object properly accessioned with all its completefield information thanks to the archival work of the student.
The Registrar’s Office at the Penn Museum is looking for a Graduate Assistant to conduct biographical research on several collectors related to select acquisitions from the African and Asian Sections.
The Penn Museum has a 130+ year history of acquiring archaeological and ethnographic objects. This assistantship seeks to document the individuals associated with the collecting of those objects.
Primary tasks will include the completion of an acquisition documentation form and a biographical profile for all collectors associated with the selected acquisitions. The Graduate Assistant will review documentation in the Registrar’s Office and Museum Archives, in addition to exploring resources in the libraries and on the internet for additional information, which will be added to the Museum’s Collections Database, EMu.
The Hearth Project builds upon previous CAAM research in a 19th-century kitchen house located in downtown historical Charleston, South Carolina. The kitchen house was occupied by enslaved people from 1808 to 1865, and it was a place where daily tasks like cooking and laundry washing took place. While previous research has focused on materials hidden inside the walls of the structure, our current research centers on the study of a brick hearth located inside the second-story living quarters of enslaved people. Directly beneath the hearth, we are identifying evidence for cooking practices, fuel use, rodent presence, and architectural changes to the hearth over time.
Excavation of the hearth has now been completed, and we are working on analyzing all of the different materials we collected. The Assistant will work in CAAM with Chantel White on a range of tasks that include (1) additional sorting and analysis of material as needed, (2) assisting with historical research on pertinent topics (such as wood charcoal and coal use in the Carolina Lowcountry), (3) identifying scraps of printed materials to match text with 19th-century newspapers and other sources, and (4) creating and formatting data tables, figures, and reference lists. The long-term goal of this project is to reveal information about the daily lives of the enslaved individuals who once lived in the kitchen house and to reconstruct the ways in which this particular space offered opportunities for resistance and agency.
Overall Project Goals
Conduct research to update object tags associated to the Teaching Collections artifacts used for K-12 and Public Programs. To meet these goals, the Assistant will:
2025-2026 Academic Year Project Goals
Working with Academic Engagement staff, the Certificate Coordinator will manage the Museum Teaching and Learning (MTL) Certificate program, designed for Penn graduate students who want to incorporate object-based, gallery-based, and observational learning into their teaching pedagogy. The certificate program is open to Penn graduate students from any discipline, and trains students on developing inquiry-based discussions, engaging with objects in the classroom, and approaching complicated questions in museum teaching, including colonialism, objectification, and ownership.
Students attend workshops, participate in one observation day, and write a short teaching statement to meet the requirements to receive the certificate. While enrollment changes every year, we expect to have between 10 and 15 students enrolled in the certificate program for 2025-2026. Individual workshops may attract additional attendees not enrolled in the program, based on the topic.
The Assistant would be responsible for:
The Penn Museum and the Dikan Center in Accra, Ghana, are exploring how a partnership between a U.S. university and an African cultural organization can catalyze the growth and development of a new museology appropriate to a local African setting. This collaboration seeks to embed collections management systems in the practices of cultural institutions in Accra, Ghana. This collaboration would start with a discrete, pilot initiative that: 1) has clearly defined outcomes and a timeline consistent with the conclusion of the Penn Museum’s 2024–2027 Strategic Plan; 2) addresses the evident need for increasing awareness and professionalization of collections management practices for future heritage storytelling in Accra and Ghana; 3) extends beyond workforce development to set a model for catalyzing the transformation of African cultural institutions; 4) supports the Penn Museum’s intellectual exploration of models for the future stewardship of global cultural collections; and 5) contributes to the intellectual growth and development of the Dikan Center and the ecosystem of cultural institutions in Accra and Ghana.
The PennCHC Graduate Student Museum Assistant will help advance the Penn Museum-Dikan Center partnership by contributing to the development of its programming. The Assistant will participate in further developing a needs and case statement, identifying sources of funding, and contributing to programmatic development and coordination.
