What can a summer internship tell you about a career you’re considering?

For Asha Dawson ’27, a summer at the American Academy in Rome offered the chance to find out. Working with historic collections, Asha gained hands-on experience with digitization and cataloguing while exploring a possible future in museum or gallery work.

Asha recieved funding through the CCPD to help make the summer internship experience possible. Here’s Asha on what they did and learned at the American Academy in Rome:

“This summer, I participated in an internship at the American Academy in Rome’s Photographic Archive. I had been offered this position while on study abroad last fall, and I thought it would be a great way to become acquainted with the kinds of archiving and cataloging work involved in museums and galleries. The Photographic Archive holds many collections focused on archaeology, architecture, art, and gardens, alongside special collections that document the institution’s history. The American Academy in Rome was initially founded in 1894 as the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, and has become a leading American overseas center for independent studies and advanced research in the fine arts and humanities. I was supervised by the curator of the Photographic Archive.

During the internship, I worked on the Czarnowski Photo Collection, which consists primarily of photographs documenting ancient Greek and Roman theaters, odeons, amphitheaters, and stadiums, taken throughout Italy and the Mediterranean region between the 1950s and 1970s. I assisted in identifying the subjects depicted in his photographs, as well as organizing and reorganizing the items. I then carried out the digitization of photographic materials in a variety of formats, including prints, negatives, and slides, following the standards and technical procedures established by the institution.

My contributions will eventually help to make the collection accessible online in high resolution. I also worked on revising the catalogue for the Pinto Collection, documenting Renaissance and Baroque churches in Rome. Through this process, I became familiar with the Academy’s library’s cataloguing system and bibliographic format to review and improve the collection’s records. This internship gave me a renewed interest in archival work, and confirmed my interest in possibly working within a museum or gallery archive in the future. I also learned a multitude of new skills relating to digitizing and cataloguing materials.” – Asha Dawson ’27

Photograph in order from left: Emiliano (Archaeologist at the Photographic Archive), Eleanor (fellow intern), Lavinia Ciuffa (Curator of the Photographic Archive), Asha Dawson.