ACLS Graduate Internships on the Spiritual Infrastructure of the Future

The American Council of Learned Societies is pleased to announce the inaugural Graduate Internships on the Spiritual Infrastructure of the Future program, funded generously by the Templeton Religion Trust, in the summer of 2026. This program is intended to provide practical work opportunities for talented, entrepreneurial PhD students in the humanities or social sciences whose dissertation topic relates to the study of religion, and to build institutional partnerships that create a pipeline of new leaders knowledgeable about the rapidly changing American religious landscape.

In nine-week, full-time summer internships with a partnering host organization, fellows will gain practical experience in how their research skills can be applied outside of academia. They will also join cohort-based programming in the year following the internship that includes in-person and virtual workshops and educational events featuring some of the researchers and journalists working to map changing religious and spiritual infrastructures inside and outside of the academy.

We expect these summer placements to foster mutually beneficial partnerships between fellows and their host organizations. Host organizations benefit from fellows’ scholarly perspectives and broad sets of skills and capacities, including strong writing, project management, cultural competencies, research, and problem-solving skills. Fellows will gain practical experience in how their research skills can be applied outside of academia, engage with the work of host organizations and the communities they serve, and build on that experience with cohort-based professional development support.

Fellows

• Receive a stipend from ACLS, and relocation funding if applicable.
• Take up internships in summer and complete defined projects lasting nine weeks.
• Devote research, project management, writing, and expressive capacities to projects and initiatives at host organizations.
• Participate in virtual cohort-based activities in the year following the summer internship.

Host Organizations

• Define substantive project(s) that enable graduate interns to use their research and communication skills to address practical problems and explore potential future careers related to the study of religion.
• Provide supervision and access to requisite resources to execute the project(s).
• Offer opportunities for networking and mentorship throughout the internship and beyond.
• Receive a stipend to support the costs of hosting a fellow.

Templeton Religion Trust (TRT) is a global charitable trust chartered by Sir John Templeton in 1984 with headquarters in Nassau, The Bahamas. TRT has been active since 2012 and supports projects as well as storytelling related to projects seeking to enrich the conversation about religion. TRT is always seeking more spiritual information, more “benefits of religion,” and more spiritual growth.