Derian interns support Princeton faculty pursuing scholarly projects, including research and teaching, in collaboration with community partners. 

The Derian Summer Internship program facilitates the growth of Princeton undergraduate students as community-engaged scholars. In addition to working directly with Derian faculty and community-based mentors, interns will participate in regular ProCES programming designed to scaffold the experience through community-engaged scholarship methods workshops and reflective practice. Over the course of the six- or eight-week, 35 hour-per-week internship, students will develop an electronic portfolio documenting their experiences, identifying the skills and capacities they are building, and articulating a strategic narrative of their work and learning.

Eligibility: Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors who are enrolled in the Spring semester prior to the internship and the Fall semester following the internship. Students who are taking leave from the University the semester prior to or following an internship are not eligible for Derian internships. All students must be in good academic standing.

The Derian Student Internship fund is named in honor of Patricia "Patt" Derian, a human rights activist and a U.S. State Department official in President Carter's administration.

Funding

ProCES provides students with a $700 weekly living stipend which is intended to cover housing and meals. Additional funds for project-related expenses, research, and project-specific travel are available on an application basis.

Students who receive a Princeton-sponsored internship for their summer should understand that these awards or grants are meant to support an intern’s experiential learning. These awards are intended to defray the cost of living for the duration of the internship, which may include cost of accommodations, meals, transportation to and from your internship. Additionally, awards are considered non-qualified scholarships OR student funding and may be taxable on your personal tax return. Stipends may be subject to tax and may be reported by the University to the Internal Revenue Service. If you have questions about applicable expenses or your eligibility to apply for additional funding, please contact the appropriate program manager or coordinator; you may also visit the Office of Finance and Treasury website to learn more about taxable awards.

Timeline

• December 2024 – Positions will be posted as they are made available by faculty
• Monday, January 6, 2025 – Applications open in SAFE
• Friday, February 7, 2025 – Application deadline
• February 10-28 – Interviews
• March 2025 -- Placements confirmed
• April  2025 – Program orientation with ProCES
• June 2, 2025 – Internships begin for a period of 6 or 8 weeks depending on the project criteria; start dates may vary by project.
• August 15, 2025 – Derian portfolios due

Contact Tania Boster [email protected] 

To Apply

Summer 2025 Derian applications are now open in SAFE. Additional projects will be posted as they become available.

1. Navigate to the Student Activities Funding Engine (SAFE)

2. Search for: “Derian Internship 2025" Use the following search criteria to find the opportunity in SAFE:

   Activity: Undergraduate Internship

   Time Period: Summer

   Project Duration: 6 to Less than 8 Weeks

   Location: Indicate On- or Off-Campus based on the specific opportunity (see specific project locations below)

Contact Tania Boster [email protected] with questions.

Project 1: Jicarilla Apache Health Access and Education

Principal Investigators: Professor João Biehl (Anthropology), Sebastián Ramírez (Pace Center), and Dr. Yolandra Gomez '88

Internship period: 6 weeks, June 9-July 20, 2024

Location: Jicarilla Apache Nation, Dulce, NM (off-campus domestic)

Derian interns will support the Jicarilla Apache  Family Home Visiting Program (JAFHVP) Tribal MIECHV. Students will be located in the Jicarilla Apache Nation, in Dulce, NM. 

Students will work with Professor João Biehl (Anthropology), Sebastián Ramírez (Pace Center), and Dr. Yolandra Gomez '88,  to support ongoing work in the Jicarilla Apache Nation in New Mexico to assess health resources and needs in the reservation, share health access information with the community, and disseminate their findings broadly. 

This internship offers students an outstanding opportunity to learn about the challenges Native American communities face when accessing healthcare and the resources they have developed to live healthier lives. Students who participate in this internship will offer a valuable contribution to ongoing efforts to make the lives of Native American families healthier and to create more just systems of care for vulnerable populations. 

The Jicarilla Apache Nation is engaging in a nationally approved approach in the use of home visiting models to support happy, healthy, and successful children and their families who live on the reservation in Dulce, New Mexico. Interns will help the JAFHVP design an implementation plan for a home visiting curriculum for pregnant families and children up to the age of 5. Students will live on the reservation, working closely with Dr. Yolandra Gomez, a pediatric doctor and Princeton Alumna. Under Dr. Gomez's direction, students will review data currently being collected about health resources and needs in the reservation. Students will also review evidence-based home visiting curricula, and help adapt one for the Jicarilla Apache Nation based on their specific strengths and needs. Students will accompany Dr. Gomez in some of her home visits and will work with community members to fine-tune the curriculum. Together with Dr. Gomez, students will trial the curriculum with select community members to determine its appropriateness and effectiveness. Living in Dulce will give students the opportunity to interact with the community directly and to incorporate their observations of everyday life into the curriculum. 

Additionally, students will support the JAFHVP in developing a platform through which to share information about medical resources to the Jicarilla Apache community. Students will engage in ethnographic research, accompanying key informants in their own healthcare trajectories further fleshing out the landscape of health resources and needs in the community. Students will also design and produce media that tells the stories of members of the Jicarilla Apache nation and their efforts to access healthcare. These stories will be used in a variety of ways; contributing to a mobile application that maps health resources for the Jicarilla Apache community, 

Skills required for the position

• Excellent interpersonal skills. Interns will interact with new people, often from diverse backgrounds. Interns should be comfortable listening respectfully and empathetically to others. 
• Ability to produce and synthesize research. Students will be tasked with reviewing medical curricula, research on its use and effectiveness as well as conduct their own interviews and ethnographic research on medical resources and needs in the Jicarilla Apache Nation. 
• Interns should have an interest in media production. No previous experience is necessary (although it is welcomed). 
• Students must have a valid driver's license and be comfortable driving. Interns will have access to a car and will be expected to drive themselves to various locations in the reservation and outside of it. 
• Being adaptable to new conditions. Accommodations in Dulce are comfortable but not luxurious. We hope students will take this as an opportunity to connect with the hosts and to learn more about life in rural New Mexico. 
• Independence. Students will live alone and will be expected to cook and care for themselves. While they will have support from Dr. Gomez and their faculty advisors, they will be expected to be self-directed and independent. 

Project 2: Princeton Performing Arts Production Workforce Training

Faculty Lead: Tess James, Program in Theater

Internship Period: 6 weeks, June 2-July 14, 2024

Location: Princeton, NJ (on-campus)

Princeton Performing Arts Production Workforce Training is a 4-week summer program aimed at recent local high school graduates between the ages of eighteen to twenty-four.  The goal of this training program is to provide a young cohort of workers, from underrepresented communities, with a highly in demand and transferable skill set that does not require a college degree. Working at the Lewis Center for the Arts, as well as at a few local theater spaces, faculty, staff and students will work with program fellows to train them in the basics of stage lighting and sound as well as workplace safety and job readiness skills.

Derian Internship placements with PPWT are available in Princeton, New Jersey, and interns will be housed on campus.  An orientation will be held on campus in early June and interns will work at the Lewis Center for the Arts performing administrative tasks, participating in workshop facilitation as well as other hands-on work in the theaters.  Interns will be in residence on campus for the 4-weeks of the program with an additional 2-week of archival work and research for the duration of participation.

Expectations of interns include:

• Aiding in the facilitation of resume reviews and work readiness workshops.
• Coordinating any theater specific site visits for participating fellows. 
• Aiding in the documentation of program activities.
• Aiding in program curricular development and documentation.
• Setting and breaking down workshop classroom spaces
• Setting and breaking down breakfast and lunch setups daily.
• High level of organization and ability to self-direct and work independently. 
• Work as a team.
• Sensitivity to diversity of perspectives and life experiences, ability to work with people across age, race, ethnicity, religious/spiritual practices, political affiliation/beliefs, and socioeconomic and educational backgrounds.

Project 3: Indigenous Language Activism: Lunaape Land, Language, and Belongings

Faculty Mentors: Dunia C. Méndez Vallejo, Spanish and Portuguese; Spanish Language Program, and Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Institute for Advanced Study

Internship Period: 6 weeks, June 2-July 14, 2025

Location: Interns will be based on campus in Princeton, NJ; some travel may be required

Since 2021, faculty members at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study have been working with members of Munsee-Delaware Nation and other Lunaape communities (also called “Lenape” or “Delaware”) to organize a series of online and in-person gatherings. (A list of past events, with embedded video, can be found here.) Princeton students working with Lunaape community members have participated in Munsee Language and History Symposia over the past two years, as well as at the July 2023 Lunaape Language Camp. Indigenous language revitalization is at the center of these community collaborations, which aim to counteract the violent history of boarding schools where Native children were forced to speak English exclusively. 

This year’s Lunaape internship opportunity has three possible streams: 1) land-based language work, focused on species that are native to Lunaapahkiing (or “Lenape land”); 2) the Names Project, assisting in genealogical and other archival research for Munsee-Delaware Nation; 3) supporting research on Lunaape belongings for an ongoing collaboration of the three Lunaape First Nations (Munsee-Delaware Nation, Eelunaapeewi Lahkeewiit, and Delaware of Six Nations of the Grand River) with the American Museum of Natural History. 

Student interns are not required to have prior knowledge of Lunaape (Munsee) language, but should have an interest in Indigenous language reclamation as well as a demonstrated interest in the lived experience of Indigenous communities. Desired abilities vary depending upon the three research streams, but all students should have strong organizational skills; be meticulous and careful; be flexible and ready to participate in regularly scheduled meetings; and be willing to become familiar with Indigenous-informed research methodologies. Each intern will be assigned to one or more project streams, working with Munsee-Delaware Nation members in an intergenerational way, guided by knowledge keepers at different life stages, from young person to Elder.

The undergraduate students who join as Lunaape project interns will become part of an ongoing collaborative relationship that began four years ago and will continue into the future. They will become a member of a strong and increasingly robust learning community that is made up of those who study or work at Princeton and those who belong to Munsee-speaking communities, both in the Lunaape diaspora and on Lunaapahkiing. 

Expectations of interns in the three research streams may include: 

• Identifying and documenting Native plant and tree species on Lunaapahkiing (either Princeton area or elsewhere on Lunaape land, which extends from southern New York state to northern Delaware, from eastern Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean).
• Developing Munsee language teaching materials related to Native plant and tree species, possibly including website development for Munsee-Delaware Nation.
• Archival research on genealogical records, supervised by an Elder from Munsee-Delaware Nation.
• Archival research on museum records from the American Museum of Natural History, transcribing descriptions of Lunaape belongings that were taken from Munsee-Delaware Nation, Eelunaapeewi Lahkeewiit, and Delaware of Six Nations of the Grand River in 1907, and then preparing presentations on this material to be shared with community via Zoom (or, if possible, in person at the Munsee-Delaware Nation’s annual gathering in July 2025). 
• Working to prepare for the October 2025 visit of Lunaape community members to their belongings at the American Museum of Natural History, and to the Lunaapeew exhibition opening that month at the Museum of the City of New York.
• High level of organization, meticulous record keeping, and the ability both to work independently and to ask for guidance as needed.
• Sensitivity to diversity of perspectives and life experiences, with thoughtful and respectful behavior toward community members, especially (but not only) Elders.  

Excerpts from past Derian interns' project portfolios

"I am a rising junior in computer science, with prospective minors in linguistics and history. I am greatly interested in applications that lie at the nexus of these fields, which led me to the Lenape Language Project. Using the knowledge I have accrued in studying computer science and linguistics, I spent the summer exploring and developing resources for the furthering of the Munsee (Lenape) language, with the end purpose of developing an online dictionary that can be used for pedagogical and language reclamation purposes. I attended the Language Camp and met with language keepers to discuss the most appropriate and effective ways to create the online dictionary.  To reach the point where I am now with respect to the project, I worked closely with professors and community members and consulted the pre-existing literature on the language as primarily documented in the places of Muncey and Moraviantown. Through this project and my research, I gained a deeper knowledge of language revitalization as it interfaces with the needs of local communities, with representatives from multiple Lenape nations in attendance for the camp."

"I am a rising senior (’24) in the Astrophysical Sciences department at Princeton University. While my university work focuses on research questions in the physical sciences, I have a strong interest in history and the humanities. What excites me most about this summer's Museumverse project is the potential to use new technologies to tell human stories. Among other lessons, my research this summer impressed upon me the richness of oral histories, and so the importance of seeking them out, preserving them, and sharing them with future generations."

"The skills acquired during this internship will undoubtedly shape my future pursuits at Princeton and beyond. I plan to continue engaging in community-based research projects and careers that prioritize shared goals and values between institutions and the people they serve. I will leverage the trust-building and communication skills I honed during this experience to collaborate effectively with diverse communities. Additionally, I aspire to promote accessible results and community empowerment through my research, contributing to positive change in society."

"This Internship furthered my Interest In how location can affect many facets of people's lives and especially people of color. For my thesis I want to focus on generational mobility of minorities after they move to places of opportunity. I think my [internship project] played a role In furthering my Interest.  It demonstrated how places that once held promise and economic stability could slip Into extreme poverty."

"The Ujamaa-EFN database is a community seed-saving project recording the inventory of cultural and experimental seeds owned by our community partners. The ArcGIS mapping project is meant to track the spread of seeds over time across zip codes. My involvement with the ArcGIS project is hopefully just beginning, as I believe there is still work to be done with it....[T]hrough conversations with different community partners, I've been thinking more about the applications of computer vision and machine learning in agriculture. Computer vision models could optimize different aspects of the growing process, especially with irrigation for example."