After she received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Maxwell in May 2025, Elise Christopher spent the summer and early fall at a national museum in Washington, D.C., getting an up-close view of culture, history and public engagement.
Christopher landed a competitive internship with the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Opened by the Smithsonian Institution in 2016, the museum is the largest of its kind and is devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history and culture.
“It’s special and a privilege to be able to be a part of the process of uplifting my own culture and also other diaspora cultures that the museum is in contact with,” said Christopher of the experience.
She started in the museum’s Office of Strategic Partnerships, which focuses on outreach and works to support the African American museum field.
“What I value the most about my museum experience has been the ability to meet and learn from so many people,” Christopher said. “There’s so much work being done to share and represent African American history and culture that I never would have known about if I hadn’t gotten the internship position.”
More recently, she worked with the office’s Ethical Interpretation Workshop, which helps museum professionals think through how to present histories involving slavery and other aspects of African American history.
Christopher said it has been “phenomenal seeing the passion people have for their work and the museum field in general.”
“It has been really inspiring to work with and talk to people who believe in and insist on the power and positive impact of their work,” she added.
She said the critical thinking skills and mentorship she received at Maxwell prepared her for the role. She said anthropology courses helped her make connections and explore the “why and how.”
“I would say that being an anthropology major strengthened my basic research skills, in terms of finding and dissecting primary and secondary sources of information,” Christopher said. “All my Maxwell professors were extremely encouraging with everything I told them I wanted to explore, and they exposed me to scholarship that affirmed the significance of the work I was doing.”
She credits faculty members like Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology, for cultivating her interest in museum work.
Pezzarossi first met Christopher when she was a sophomore and a frequent attendee of a lunch speaker series she organized. “She was a good student and a curious person and the perfect kind of lifelong learner to work in a museum.” Pezzarossi said.
During her four years at Syracuse, Christopher excelled academically, landing a spot on the dean’s list every semester. She interned with the Dimensions mentoring program and during her senior year served as president of Cuse Krew, a K-pop general interest organization.
The U.S. government shut down in October impacted Christopher’s internship by limiting her access to the museum, but she was able to continue to work remotely until it wrapped up in November.
“I am aspiring to work in the museum field,” said Christopher. “After getting insight on the administrative side of things during this internship, I’m looking forward to exploring the work of curatorial affairs, collections and public programming”
By Jacob Spudich
Photo above of the National Museum of African American History and Culture by Frank Schulenburg, CC