Information for Students
Overview
The Public Humanities Graduate Internship Program places Rice Humanities PhD students in paid summer internships with mission-driven organizations in Houston and beyond. Whether you want to apply your PhD training to a new setting or explore careers beyond the academy, this program allows you gain hands-on experience to understand the value of your PhD training across contexts.
The program is built around three pillars:
– Direct experience: You will do substantive work for a partner organization, applying your research, pedagogical, analytical, and writing expertise in service of its work and mission. Some interns take on a defined project, while others join the organization's ongoing work. Positions typically involve research and public writing, communications and outreach, program support and development, and/or data collection and analysis. Rather than relying on "transferable experience," the internship allows you to develop direct relevant experience based on the skills and expertise you're developing in your PhD training.
– Translation: Working in a new professional setting—and a different field from academia—teaches you its language. Through the internship and the accompanying seminar, you will learn to describe your humanistic skills and experiences in terms that are legible to employers outside academia.
– Networking: You will be embedded in the organization and meet professionals across functions. In doing so, you will also build professional relationships at your host organization and, at times, across Houston's nonprofit and cultural sectors, with supervisors and colleagues who can speak to your work beyond the academy.
Some interns also find that the experience feeds back into their research, through new questions, methods, sources, or community relationships.
What to expect:
– Internship format: 8 weeks between May and August 2027, at 25 hours per week (200 hours total)—this should also allow you to dedicate some time toward making progress toward your dissertation.
– Stipend: $6,000, paid by Rice ($30/h)
– Seminar: A weekly one-hour seminar accompanies the internship. Sessions combine check-ins with critical discussion of work itself: what "public humanities" means, how labor is organized in academia and in the nonprofit sector, and how workplace cultures differ. Along the way, students practice articulating what they are learning and doing for audiences outside the university.
– Positions: Each partner organization offers a specific internship position, and students apply directly to the positions that interest them.
Past internships have included:
- Digital communications and science storytelling at Island Conservation, a global conservation nonprofit;
- Narrative and media writing at Woori Juntos, a grassroots organization serving Asian and immigrant communities across Texas;
- Program evaluation, curriculum development, and research synthesis at the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center;
- Impact narratives and institutional ethnography, and institutional history at the Jung Center;
- Comparative research and strategy with the development team at Project Row Houses, an arts and community organization in Houston's Third Ward.
Eligibility
– Rice PhD students in the School of Humanities and Arts. Preference will be given to students in year 3 and above.
– Students must be registered in Fall 2027.
– Due to federal restrictions on optional internships, international students are not eligible to participate in 2027.
Applicants are encouraged to attend a résumé and cover letter workshop at the Humanities Research Center or to develop application materials with support from the Center for Career Development.
Application Information
Students apply to specific positions, with a résumé and a cover letter tailored to each. Applications are due Monday, March 15, 2027, by 11:59 PM CT.
For examples of past positions, see the Summer 2026 Internships page. Please refer to the Summer 2026 Internships page for application and submission information for past positions.
Contact
Dr. Gabriela Garcia, Program Director
gabriela.garcia@rice.edu
This program is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.