We offer many opportunities for our community to support our mission through volunteering and internships. (We offer modest stipends and/or school credit.) We are looking for volunteers, students, and partners to:
Intern or Volunteer at Brunel Park
Use existing source materials to compile a digital Catalogue Raisonne of Emile Brunel’s photographic output
Identify and research the photographers that Brunel taught and inspired as students at the NY Institute of Photography
Create an online digital archive searchable database of Brunel’s photographs and photographs of the sculptures and gardens.
Create an annotated map with historical photographs documenting Le Chalet Indien
Assist with creating educational programming and develop content for a variety of tours
Serve as greeters and docents on weekends
Help us during special events
Help produce content for our social media platforms and website
Calling on all garden enthusiasts! Help us in the garden, maintaining the planting beds and installing new plantings
Summer 2026 Intern Jonathan Martinez will be helping to manage Emile Brunel’s and the garden’s photography, narratives, and historical document collection into a digital archival database. He will also assist with research leads related to key figures associated with the NYIP and Brunel's 35 photographic studios. Jonathan Martinez is a senior studying Media Studies and Production at Marist University with minors in Advertising, Global Studies, and History. He is interested in working within the communications, advertising, and historical media fields.
Summer 2026 Intern Gretchen Schirmer is studying liberal arts, math, and science at SUNY Ulster and plans to attend SUNY New Paltz to study biology / entomology. Her interests include insects, logic, and problem solving and she owns many small creatures and constantly wants to learn more about all of them. Gretchen is externing at Brunel Park, helping with hardscaping, removing and exterminating invasive plants, planting native perennials around the garden, and teaching the Nikitins new things about all the insects on their property.
Summer 2026 Intern Aria Sickler Avery will be researching the connections between and among the visitors to Le Chalet Indien from Frederick and Stefi Kiesler’s Circle, thereby establishing proof of the existence of an artists’ colony at Brunel Park. Aria is a Senior at Cornell University where she is majoring in Industrial and Labor Relations with a minor in Law and Society. She is involved with the Indigenous community at Cornell, as well as the music department, and has worked with museums and social justice organizations in the Hudson Valley region. She hopes to pursue a career that allows her to give back to communities through law and public policy and is excited by the opportunity to further develop the necessary research skills for this career path through this internship while also engaging her passion for history.