The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seeks a communications and marketing systems intern to assist with promoting AEI’s research to its constituents. This includes using our automated email marketing system to prepare and send articles and newsletters, using our customer-relationship management database to gather appropriate mailing lists, researching and updating constituent contact information, and helping with other special projects. While some data entry is required, the intern will also work on broader projects such as facilitating marketing automation, curating email content, and analyzing and improving the effectiveness of AEI’s email communications to its...

The FREE Initiative is a national collaborative outreach and educational resourcing effort led by AEI scholar Ian Rowe. The FREE Initiative disseminates insights about the crucial roles of family, religion, education, and entrepreneurship in developing the rising generation of young Americans. FREE is also building and catalyzing a growing network of exemplary leaders from across the nation who use their spheres of influence to revitalize community life and instill a sense of agency in the next generation.

The American Enterprise Institute seeks an intern who will assist Distinguished Senior Fellow Danielle Pletka and Senior Fellow Marc A. Thiessen in research tasks for regular opinion columns, long-term projects, and events. Typical research will relate to the Middle East, China, America’s role in the international community, and occasionally domestic politics. The intern will assist with research for the What the Hell Is Going On? podcast. The intern will also provide research and communications support for Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies Kori Schake on various foreign...

American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Mackenzie Eaglen specializes in defense strategy, defense budgets, military readiness, and the defense industrial base. Interns on the military strategy and US defense budget team will assist with compiling and preparing background on issues of congressional oversight, examining defense-budget investments across the services, drafting memos and report text, and collecting data. Assignments may also include attending congressional hearings on the defense budget and responding to current events relating to military-strategy issues.

The American Enterprise Institute seeks an intern who will assist Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy. Dr. Eberstadt focuses on global demographic trends, human capital, and economic development, with a current emphasis on China, Russia, and developing nations. He also researches North Korea, poverty in the United States, foreign aid, global health, and mortality. The intern will do quantitative analysis, background research, fact-checking, and editing for articles and ongoing projects. Experience with Python, R, or Stata and familiarity with Microsoft Excel are required. Professional working capacity in Mandarin is preferred.  

The Critical Threats Project (CTP), led by Senior Fellow Frederick W. Kagan, tracks and analyzes current and emerging challenges to American national security in concert with its partner organization the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Interns will support analysis of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, Iran’s Axis of Resistance, and Iranian regional activities and domestic politics. Interns will be responsible for monitoring regional media, translating, assisting with and conducting research, orally briefing analysis, and contributing to CTP's daily Iran Update. The internship includes educational modules for developing intelligence analysis tradecraft.

The Critical Threats Project (CTP), led by Senior Fellow Frederick W. Kagan, tracks and analyzes current and emerging threats to American national security. The intern will fulfill operations projects and tasks for the team, gaining skills transferrable to many professions.   The intern will curate content for CTP’s website and social media platforms. Social media work will include researching and implementing new creative strategies to increase social media engagement, monitoring and reporting...

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Coalitions team helps AEI scholars connect their research with audiences inside and outside Washington, DC. We focus on getting scholarly work from the website to the community. Interns must have a startup mentality and an ability to identify new ways to add value across the organization. The most successful interns will be interested in and familiar with AEI scholars’ work, exhibit strong writing and organizational skills, and be curious about nonprofit management and public relations.  

Academic Programs connects undergraduate institutions, faculty, and students across the country to the work of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the broader public policy world. The Academic Programs intern is responsible for supporting the planning and execution of program events at AEI and on college campuses, compiling internal surveys, and aiding the team in preparation for the 2026 Summer Honors Program. Other responsibilities might include researching college campuses, managing databases, and providing logistical support for events hosted in Washington, DC, and virtually. Strong candidates will demonstrate familiarity with and an appreciation for AEI, strong...

The Editing Services department at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is responsible for editing and coordinating publications, event materials, and other projects and assisting with the promotion of scholars’ work. An intern in this department will assist team members with copyediting and proofreading, coordinating AEI book promotion, maintaining archives, and completing other communication-related tasks. Candidates should have excellent editing and writing skills, strong attention to detail, knowledge about media and current events, great organizational skills, and an interest in communications and marketing. Experience working with publications and with editorial style guides (especially...

Intern in the press office of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a distinguished Washington, DC, think tank. Learn about strategic media communication, track our scholars’ research, and familiarize yourself with the media landscape.   AEI is a great place to learn about the interaction between government and media. Join a select intern program that offers unique learning experiences such as exposure to research in foreign policy, politics, economics, technology, and education; instruction...

The American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center seeks an intern to support the research of Senior Fellows Edward J. Pinto and Tobias Peter on domestic housing, historical and current mortgage lending policies, and financial policy reform.   Primary assignments will include helping maintain the center’s various indexes and large databases; supporting research through data management, retrieval, and analysis; editing and contributing to scholarly papers, articles, and op-eds; creating and...

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seeks an in-person intern for its technology policy studies program, which focuses on advancing policies to encourage innovation, competition, and growth in technology and seeks to minimize unintended consequences amid the rise of disruptive technology, such as artificial intelligence. The intern will assist AEI’s technology policy team with the program’s daily research and administrative activities and the tech policy newsletter.   The...

The American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility seeks a driven, research-oriented candidate for its workforce development team. The vocation, career, and work intern will work closely with Senior Fellow Brent Orrell and staff to research the intersectional domain of workforce development policy. Current projects include analyzing the present and future of work, the skills needed for success in the modern workforce, automation and economic trends in employment, worker attitudes and workplace culture, work as a pathway to economic mobility, and workforce issues relating to dislocated and “hidden” workers, including...

The American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility (COSM) seeks a driven, research-oriented intern for fall 2025. The intern will work closely with COSM scholars and staff to research, identify, and promote policies that improve opportunity and mobility for low-income Americans. COSM scholars study the determinants of economic mobility and human flourishing in America through empirically driven and policy-informing research.   The COSM intern will interact with a...

The American Enterprise Institute seeks an intern who will assist Senior Fellow Daniel A. Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life. Dr. Cox is an expert on polling and public opinion and specializes in survey research, politics, generational change and identity, and religion. The intern will have the opportunity to work on a range of public opinion projects and gain exposure to various survey analysis techniques and polling methodologies, with an emphasis on studying the growing gender divide in public opinion among young people for a forthcoming book by Dr. Cox.  

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seeks an intern who will assist Senior Fellow Kevin R. Kosar and other scholars in AEI’s Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department. Dr. Kosar researches the US Congress and election reform, focusing on how electoral systems affect Congress as an institution.   The intern will assist with Dr. Kosar’s work on Congress and elections by reading and analyzing scholarship; collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data on Congress and elections;...

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Events team ensures that the more than 1,200 public and private events held annually at AEI’s headquarters are executed flawlessly. AEI scholars and staff turn to the Events team to maximize the quality of all aspects of events, including setup, audience attendance, audiovisual production, catering, registration, metrics, and billing. As the Events intern, you’ll play a crucial role in supporting AEI’s mission to foster insightful dialogue and executing impactful events that shape the future of public policy.

The Development department at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is the organization’s fundraising apparatus, attracting and managing financial support for all AEI initiatives and operations. AEI is supported by individuals, foundations, and corporations that share AEI’s core values—free people, free markets, and American global leadership—and engage with the Institute through private and public events, publications, personal meetings, and more.