The Moravian Archives is thrilled to be hosting 2 interns this spring semester! MAB always enjoys having interns at our institution. They challenge the staff to think differently about our day-to-day and provide us with the opportunity to (hopefully) have an impact on the next generation of Gallery, Library, Archives, and Museum (GLAM) professionals. This year, interns are helping us digitize accession records and our PhotPortraits collection.

Learn more about this year’s spring 2025 interns and keep a look out for additional blog posts where the interns will highlight their projects and time at the MAB.

Name: Ryanna Kral

School Affiliation: I am with Moravian University, graduating in the Spring of 2026.

What are you studying and what drew you to that field? Currently, I am studying as an English major with a History minor. I have always had an interest in English studies and a desire to someday publish books of my own. The study of language and literature has fascinated me for nearly a decade, and I have always wanted to be a writer. My interest in history is a relatively new addition; with all that is happening worldwide, I have developed a dedication to learning about, preserving, and protecting the past from censorship and misinformation.

What do you hope to gain from your internship at MAB? This is a field I primarily discovered alone, and is one that I wish to learn more about. If this is truly where my passion lies, I want to know everything there is to know about it. What better way is there to do so than firsthand experience?

If you could jump on a plane tomorrow, where would you go? Why? Lastly, if I could jump on a plane tomorrow, I would absolutely love to travel to Ireland. It is a country that we learn very little about in the American education system, but one that is so rich in history, culture, and mythology. The land itself is beautiful, and it feels much easier to connect to the natural world in somewhere so lush and green, contrasting the urban society I have always known.

Name: Ryan Rissmiller

School Affiliation: I am a junior at Moravian University. I started college at Northampton Community College in 2022 and transferred to Moravian in 2024 and plan to graduate in the spring of 2026.

What are you studying and what drew you to that field? I am studying history as a major and a minor in political science. I have always loved history from when I was young and it just kept growing. My biggest interest now is mainly the 20th century and military history. I always enjoy reading and watching movies about great stories of veterans. For my political science minor, I did not always pay much attention to politics, but I developed an interest as I grew older and studied it.

What do you hope to gain from your internship at MAB? I am hoping to gain experience in researching and handling old items because I am thinking about becoming a researcher or a full-time historian. It also will of course give me good experience in working in an archive and seeing the processes they do. I also think interning at MAB will help me learn more about the university. So far the photos that I have seen are very interesting because of how old they are or how far they can date back to. For example, one photo was of a Moravian who was from the east West Indies, so it gives people a sense of how far the Moravians traveled the world.

If you could jump on a plan tomorrow, where would you go? Why? The place I would go to is likely the U.S. Army Heritage and Educational Center. I went there once and I loved it there and it was probably the place that got me into military history. Another location is the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois, Wyoming because as the name suggests, it is a museum full of vehicles ranging from World War II to Desert Storm and I think I would be very happy working and teaching there.