National Museum of Natural History Unearthed

Winter Break Interns 2012 - Michelle Daniel

Where are you from and what brings you to the Museum?

I come from Toronto, Canada, where I study Forest Conservation and Environmental Biology at the University of Toronto. Travelling to DC meant more than escaping the cold weather! I was drawn in by the excitement of the national museum environment and the opportunity to contribute to a project and an institution that is nationally and internationally meaningful. Interning at the Museum gave me the chance to combine what I have learned in my classes with participating in real research projects.

How did you get "Behind those Doors?"

I heard about the Winter Internship program a few months ago and kept a close watch on the website until the projects were posted in October. It was hard to choose just one! I applied to the Conservation of Bureau of Land Management's Botanical Voucher Collection project, which sounded exciting and likely a good fit for my interests. Once I contacted my staff sponsor, Andrew Clark, we were able to discuss the project further, and he and other NMNH staff made the rest of the process easy.  Soon the paperwork was complete, my flight was booked, and I was on my way!  

What is it you're doing back there, behind those doors?

I came to help with a project called Seeds of Success. Plant specimens and seed have been collected from all over the country to organize a seed bank (housed in Alaska) and a collection of the specimens as vouchers, which are joining the herbarium colelction at the Museum. While I was visiting, we started using the database that will enable us to organize the collection and the information we have about the specimens. This will allow scholars and land management professionals to study the specimens and to use them as vouchers to access seeds in the future for regeneration and other initiatives.

In addition to those directly associated with the Seeds of Success project, I had the opportunity to explore the collection and participate in many of the aspects and functions of the herbarium during my internship. I was amazed at how many specimens there are! It was important to learn how the collections and other herbaria are organized and maintained. One of the things that I enjoyed most was working in plant mounting. The staff and volunteers who do this are like artists, and many of the specimens they prepare are very beautiful. Watching this and other aspects meant that myself and the other interns on this project were able to learn about the journey that a plant makes after being collected in the field. It's exciting to know we worked with specimens that are now part of a historically significant collection that we expect will continue to be valued and protected for hundreds of years to come.

What's been the most amazing or unexpected thing you've seen, experienced or discovered while being part of the NMNH academic community?

I think everyone would agree with me that the Museum is a very exciting place to be! I could have happily spent much more time in the exhibits, on behind-the-scenes tours, and at nearby sites. A particular highlight of my time had to be the behind-the-scenes tour of the paleobiology collection. From the tiny specimens to the dinosaurs, everything was so cool, and it was awesome to be shown around by an expert! For me though, the most amazing part of my internship was the sense of commitment across the Museum community to making this a great experience for me. I encountered a wide range of scholars who made every effort to ensure that I learned as much as possible through the project and even beyond the Museum - making my visit to DC a wonderful experience.

Michelle Daniel, Winter Break Intern, Seeds of Success Project

 

 

Image credits: All images courtesy of Michelle Daniel

Behind those Doors: Internships and Fellowships at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

As a child, I was fascinated by places like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) but found it difficult to imagine as a real place where people could participate in and contribute to its activities and operations.  And then there are those doors - the ones that lead beyond the public exhibitions.  What’s behind them?

I got the chance to find out when I became a summer intern, which was also when I discovered my passion for facilitating this kind of experience for others.  As the Head of the Office of Academic Services and a former NMNH intern, I can assure you the place is real, the staff are amazing, and through our academic opportunities, people like you can contributing their time and talents toward our endeavors. 

Still a bit curious about what internships and fellowships are like at NMNH and wondering how you can apply? Through our series "Behind Those Doors," you'll take peeks behind-the-scenes with stories about our academic opportunities, the people participating in them, and links to more information about how to apply.

Winter and Spring Break Internships

So what did you do over winter break?  Hang out with family?  Eat  too many holiday cookies?  Did you know we have a special internship program specially designed to place interested and motivated undergraduate and graduate students, in short-term internships during their winter and spring breaks? During these short internships, you can gain practical experience by working in a museum setting, develop new skills learned from our staff, provide a service to the organization by contributing your time and talents, create professional partnerships, and pursue your fields of interest.

This year we had 36 students participate in our 2012 Winter Break Internship Program.  They came from 16 different states, joined 18 different projects, and engaged with us for a combined total of nearly 5,000 hours.

Why offer such short internships?  In the words of intern Jeremy Azurin, from Virginia Tech, “It's a fantastic time to explore different areas of science and possible career options, meet other interns and professional staff, and most importantly, gain valuable experience within the Museum.” 

About her Winter Break Internship ShuMing Huang, a freshman from Smith College, commented “As the introduction says, '…because at Smithsonian, the possibility is endless!' My experience at Smithsonian really proved this statement.  I have not only explored the endless possibilities, but also inspired by the people I met, the exhibitions I visited, and the projects I worked on. Every day is a new adventure.” 

Can you really make a contribution during such a short internships?  You bet!  Arthi Aravind, from the College of William and Mary, working in our Division of Birds, puts it in perspective for us all.  “Someday, a hundred years in the future, a researcher might pick up one of the birds I worked on and count it as a data point, and it will have done its part to help further the mission of the Smithsonian Institution, which is to 'increase and diffuse knowledge.' In its lifetime, it’s difficult to predict just how many projects this one specimen will be involved in, but when you consider how many specimens the Smithsonian Institution has as a whole—that’s 137 million—it’s mind-boggling to imagine the importance of the collections to the cause of advancing human scientific knowledge. What’s important is that museum visitors are aware of this, so they can truly understand the mission of museums and all that they do."

Spring is just around the corner.  What are you doing over spring break?  We’re now placing students in our week-long Spring Break Internship Program. 

Mary Sangrey, Head, Office of Academic Services

Image captions and credits (top to bottom): In addition to contributing to a project, winter break program participants have the opportunity to join special tours of NMNH's research facilities and collections areas; Arthi Aravind with the study skin of a Yellow-Headed blackbird that she prepared during her winter break internship. Images courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Mary Rice and the Creation of the Smithsonian Marine Station

Dr. Mary E. Rice came to the Smithsonian in 1966, soon after the completion of her PhD in zoology at the University of Washington, to work in the Division of Worms, part of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum of Natural History. She was in charge of curating the sipunculan and echiuran collections. Sipunculans and echiurans are primitive, unsegmented worm-like marine animals that typically live in burrows of sand or mud, or in rock or coral crevices. They are found in all the world’s oceans from shallow waters to abyssal depths. Rice has devoted her career to the study of sipunculans, an important but little-known marine group, focusing her research on their evolution and development. Her research interests have extended further to include the larger field of life histories of marine organisms.

Rice grew up on a farm outside of Washington, D.C., in southern Maryland, where she was surrounded by nature—including cows, chickens, horses, cats, dogs, and other animals. She received her first microscope at a very young age, and even before high school she had decided she would be a biologist. She matriculated at Drew University in New Jersey in 1943, where she was part of the first class of women. During summers she received scholarships to study marine biology at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. After obtaining an M.A. degree in zoology at Oberlin College, she returned to Drew to teach for a year, followed by two years as a research associate at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. The death of her father in 1952 brought her back home to the D.C. area, where she worked at the National Institutes of Health in cancer and toxicology research. She eventually left the NIH to pursue a Ph.D. in marine biology at the University of Washington, gaining more field and research experience at the Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island.

Click here to read the rest of Dr. Rice's story and to find out how she established the Smithsonian's Marine Station!

Text and imagery courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Image caption: Dr. Mary Rice holds a sand-burrowing species of a worm-like marine animal called a sipunculan. In the background are pictures of oceanic larvae of sipunculans. Credit: Photo by Tom Smoyer; image courtesy of Smithsonian Marine Station