Inside IALR

Inside the Internship: Stories from IALR’s Summer Interns

• Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

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What is it like to be an intern at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research? In this episode of Inside IALR, hear from five of the 18 interns who spent their summer working across IALR’s divisions—from applied research and economic development to manufacturing advancement and GO TEC.

You’ll hear from:

  • Grayson Snead, an ag tech intern researching bacterial endophytes in broccoli microgreens
  • Dilara Sultanova, a data-savvy Empower intern building automation tools and career resources
  • Daniel Olasoko and Moiz Fakhri, who worked with machine learning models to support student success in the ATDM program
  • Dakotah Younger, who helped train teachers and guide students through hands-on technology with the GO TEC team

They reflect on what they learned, the real-world impact they made, and how the experience is shaping their future careers. 

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Caleb Ayers:

Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR. Thanks for being here today. So today we have sort of a fun episode. We're a huge proponent of internships here at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research and we support companies in developing their own internships programs and onboarding internships and things like that, providing resources for them to do that. But we also try to practice what we preach and host interns here as well, and this summer we had 18 interns who are working across our campus in the months of June and July and a little bit into August and we are going to interview five of them to hear about their experiences, their time here at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research.

Caleb Ayers:

This summer we hosted internships across our different departments and divisions. I mean, we have interns who are working in research and conducting experiments and we have interns in our advanced learning divisions supporting different programs. We have interns in manufacturing advancement who are working with things like augmented reality and virtual reality and machine learning and things like that. We have interns in economic development, doing research and data analysis all sorts of areas in our organization where we bring interns in, teach them the ropes, show them the ropes and let them learn in a very hands-on way. So next up we have interviews with five different interns who spent their time with us this summer. First up we have Grayson Sneed, who is an ag tech research intern here. So thanks for being here, appreciate it, I guess. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of how you found this internship.

Grayson Snead:

I grew up here. Um, I live in Ringgold so I went to Dan River. I came to Piedmont Governor's School I didn't graduate that long ago so I knew the. The ILR did internships and they offered summer internships and I saw the ones they posted this year and I was like that's, that's kind of cool, like I want to do that Cool.

Caleb Ayers:

I mean, are you interested in pursuing a career in research? I am yeah, so what is? What is your kind of career goals and aspirations?

Grayson Snead:

Um, I want to go into like virology. I like viruses and disease, maybe immunology, so I've just something to get exposure to the field of research. Obviously I'm I'm not super plant-based, but it's kind of those core skills that you learn Sure Good to learn anywhere.

Caleb Ayers:

And what have you been working on this summer?

Grayson Snead:

I've been doing stuff with bacterial endophytes, so just things you put in a plant that doesn't cause any harm. But you want to see some kind of growth from it, some increased yields, maybe better plant quality all around.

Caleb Ayers:

So I've been working with those in broccoli microgreens to see if they do anything productive.

Grayson Snead:

And what does that experiment look like? Has it been working out? It's not the bacteria we chose have been used here before by some of the researchers here and they showed increased growth. So I'm not sure if it's just the plant that we used we used broccoli microgreens or if it was something in our experimental design that needs to be tweaked. But so far, nothing significant.

Caleb Ayers:

But what have you learned from? Because was that your first time running an experiment?

Grayson Snead:

It was my second time I did something here in high school, but this was a lot more involved and a lot more hands-on.

Caleb Ayers:

So what have you learned through that process?

Grayson Snead:

I'd say just the research process. Obviously, it's not great to get non-significant results, but those are still results and they're still productive. Um, I didn't do, I didn't build the experimental design from like the ground up. A lot of that was, um, my advisor, but it was kind of like here's our core thing that we need to do figure out how to do it. Um, obviously everybody's been super helpful, but it's it was very a lot of freedom and it's kind of like playing scientist, of like I'm not really qualified to do any of this stuff, so it's like figuring out along the way is pretty cool.

Caleb Ayers:

So that's been fun and who has been your, your, advisor this summer.

Grayson Snead:

Dr Kaylee South.

Caleb Ayers:

okay, she's great yeah, super awesome and so you mentioned, you know, that you're interested in pursuing a career in kind of immunology virology. How are you planning to get like? What are, what are the next steps on your path to get there?

Grayson Snead:

So I'm going to Vanderbilt in the spring or the fall. I transferred from Furman University in Greenville, south Carolina, and I'm working in a lab there. I just got into that lab and they're doing rotavirus and reovirus research, so just some stuff with that. Not sure yet what that's going to look like, but it's super cool because it's just direct exposure to the field. I'll be doing undergraduate research, so that's great Cool.

Caleb Ayers:

You know you talked about kind of the research process and learning a lot about that this summer. What else have been kind of your takeaways from this summer internship here at IALR?

Grayson Snead:

I've done a lot of other stuff too. We're involved in a couple other greenhouse projects, so not directly my projects, but we've had some edible flower things going on, micro tomatoes. We installed lights in there. There's just. It's kind of the day-to-day of research. It's not always the super engaging and fun thing of like I'm doing things every day. Sometimes I'm sitting in my office and just typing or just reading some stuff, so just getting to see the day-to-day of like what realistic research looks like it's not groundbreaking every day.

Grayson Snead:

It's not always super fun. And I've come in and I've done there's days I haven't even gone out to the greenhouse Um, I've swept the greenhouse a lot. We mop sometimes. So just like it's, this is a job and it's um, it's fun. Overall it's ultimately super fun, but some days are a lot slower than others. So just knowing that is important, I think.

Caleb Ayers:

All right, some rapid-fire questions real quick. What's your life theme song?

Grayson Snead:

Oh, I don't know. Hold on. Probably it's got to be a country song. Uncle Penn by Ricky Skaggs. It's a bluegrass song. Actually. Pause cut Highway 40 Blues by Ricky Skaggs, that's a good one.

Caleb Ayers:

I don't know that song. We'll take it. Caffeine of choice.

Grayson Snead:

Oh, coffee yeah.

Caleb Ayers:

All right, good stuff. Thank you, thanks for being here. Now we have Dilara Soltanova, who is an intern with the Empower program here, so thanks for being here. So tell me a little bit about kind of just how you found this internship.

Dilara Sultanova:

I found this internship through Averitt, through my professor, and I thought that it's a hands-on experience through my actual career, which includes the career and technology assistant. So I think it would be a good combination of helping students out with their career workforce and also including my technical, real problem-solving skills.

Caleb Ayers:

What is your kind of long-term career goals?

Dilara Sultanova:

I think it's something that includes data engineering or applied AI. It's like solving real problem issues that would need my technical solving skills, and also I'm really interested in data structuring. As I said, data engineering, working with the data systems everything that includes that.

Caleb Ayers:

Yeah, and how has your experience this summer? How have you seen that contributing to those you know, to those career goals that you have?

Dilara Sultanova:

I think it's been really impactful since the day one, the trust and responsibility that was given me and that my thoughts was valued, and also my impact throughout the real data and impactful projects I've been working with, as contributing to the Empower Exchange and also creating a calendar for young professionals so they won't be feeling that they will be just working on daily basis, that they could be joining some other experiences, such as volunteering and also developing through their career, and also I've been learning about more of structuring code through Python and Jupyter Notebook so I could be useful in development of workforce, I would say.

Caleb Ayers:

And you mentioned a couple of those things you've been working on the Empower Exchange event, which I know is coming up, or yeah, by the time this publishes, will be about to happen. I know you've been helping our team with the creation of a new website for the Career Choice Expo. So kind of what have been some of your favorite things that you've done so far this summer, whether that be, you know, specifically a work project or just getting to hang out around campus or with interns or anything like that.

Dilara Sultanova:

I think the main thing I've been busy with is creating an automated data structured system. That will be an automated system that will extract data from the scanned PDFs of the career choice expo, youth, youth expo surveys. So it will be a added automation and not added manually like 4 000 surveys would be hard to add manually. So I would try to create an automated system through combining ai tools and also with the combining ai tools with the python code, so I would get an extracted data from the PDFs and make a constructed Excel spreadsheet. So it will be useful and all data will be correct without any mistakes. And also I think that it was an honor for me to work on the query choice microsite. I think it was great in order for me to see the structure, how they trust me in, how to design and work on structure in the point of view of the educators, students and employers.

Caleb Ayers:

I think in the past interns have had the job of manually typing in the data from those surveys. So that's cool that you just did a job that will save future interns from doing that job. Anything else that you want to add?

Dilara Sultanova:

I just want to say thank you to ALR, to all departments that I've been working on, to get to know them, for giving me opportunity to take a place in meaningful projects to make an impact on what they're working on.

Caleb Ayers:

Yeah Well, thanks for being here, and now we have some quick, rapid-fire, fun questions. Dogs or cats.

Dilara Sultanova:

Dogs.

Caleb Ayers:

Do you listen to music or not while you work?

Dilara Sultanova:

When I'm bored.

Caleb Ayers:

Fair enough, and do you bring your own lunch or do you eat out? I bring my lunch. All right, that's all. Thanks for being here. Thank you, we have Daniel Olasoko, who's one of the manufacturing advancement interns here at IALR. Thanks for being here. So, to start, tell us a little bit about, kind of, how you found out about this internship.

Daniel Olasoko:

So I was searching for an internship because I was trying to gain experience this summer. Then I was on LinkedIn. I saw the posts like the postings for the openings at the institute, so I applied to this one. I saw one regarding the smart tables, but I'd done something with them last year, so I wanted to try something else. And I read the job description. It talked about machine learning using Python and a lot of fun things. So I was like, yeah, let me go for this.

Caleb Ayers:

Anytime someone says they found something on social media, that's my job. So I said I guess I did my job. So tell me a little bit about I mean, I know that there's five of you this summer, right, so tell me a little bit about, kind of the projects that you guys have been working on this summer.

Daniel Olasoko:

So we're kind of divided, but three of us work on the same thing. Then the other two are doing separate things. But the team I'm on the goal is to create a custom algorithm that will predict the likelihood of students from the ATDM graduating and getting employed. So we are using data from the ATDM program, like grades, attendance, and the first step we do is clean the data, then doing feature engineering, trying to find features between the data and doing visuals, with all done with Python. So we've been coding most of the time. Then at this point we're testing our model. So we chose a model. We're testing it right now, then after that it should be ready for deployment.

Caleb Ayers:

That's pretty awesome. So what was kind of the when you walked in, were you given the here's exactly how to do this, or were you given a here's what we want to do? You guys figure it out.

Daniel Olasoko:

So they have the project title and the project description, of course. So our manager described what we had to do and there were already some set tasks. So every two weeks we have sprint planning and, like, each person picks the task they want to do. So there was kind of a layout of what we had to do, but also within ourselves we like picked what we wanted to do and how to do it. So there's the idea of what we're trying to accomplish, but in some sense it's still up to us to do it how we want to do it that's fun, that's kind of how the real workplace works, so that's that sounds like good experience for you all.

Caleb Ayers:

And what have you kind of taken away from this internship this summer?

Daniel Olasoko:

so I've had some experience with coding, but not this often coding like every day. So that's a good experience for me, because there's some things I already knew from school I'm just learning in my own time and there's some things I'm learning along the way, so I'm learning more and growing my skill set. Also, working with a team, so I'm working with other people and going back and forth, communicating. Well, that has been like a skill that I would say I've gotten better in.

Caleb Ayers:

And what are kind of your career goals after you finish school? Or I guess, yeah, what are you studying? What are your career goals after you finish school?

Daniel Olasoko:

So I'm studying computer science and I'm going to my senior year this fall. I plan to work in the cybersecurity field, something in the lines of that. So I'll get an entry-level position, hopefully, and grow from there.

Caleb Ayers:

And how do you think this experience this summer kind of helped prepare you for your future career?

Daniel Olasoko:

As I said, I was thinking of cybersecurity, but being exposed to this. We're doing some data science type of things, so I might also possibly consider a career in data science. I just never thought of it because I have not been exposed to it, so this has opened my eyes to a different path in computer science.

Caleb Ayers:

That's really cool. What has been kind of your favorite parts of working here at IALR this summer?

Daniel Olasoko:

My favorite part Working with the team. The team I'm working with are great. Like everyone is really helpful, and the projects I'm working on is also a really interesting project that could benefit the ATDM.

Caleb Ayers:

All right, rapid fire, real quick. If you could instantly master one hobby, what would it be?

Daniel Olasoko:

Master one hobby how to fly a plane.

Caleb Ayers:

That's a good one. Board hobby how to fly a plane that's a good one. Board games or video games, video games. Okay, what do you do after work?

Daniel Olasoko:

Go to the gym.

Caleb Ayers:

All right, good stuff. Thanks, daniel, appreciate it. Thank you All right. And next we have Moise Fakhry, who is a manufacturing advancement intern. Thanks for being here. So first tell me a little bit kind of about your I guess career and education background and how you ended up with this internship here at IALR.

Moiz Fakhri:

I recently just finished high school and I graduated and most of my high school experience has been primarily just academic focus so lots of AP classes and stuff like that and I wanted more experience in the real world. So to make up for that, I was looking for a summer internship that would be related to where I'm trying to be in the future. So that's related to something like artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science, something like that data science and I was just searching through Google and I landed on the website that you made and I clicked apply and I put in my resume and everything, and that's that's how I got here.

Caleb Ayers:

That's a good, good success story of I think. Most of our interns either are from either from the area or go to school in the area, so there's like some level of local connection. And you just straight up came from Georgia for this Me and one other intern, surya, from Michigan. So what's? What's that been like? I mean like I mean you basically, yeah, just came to a whole new community. Yeah, summer yeah it's.

Moiz Fakhri:

It's been a pretty crazy ride. A lot of my family and friends they were like you're going where all the way, all the way in virginia, um, so I had to actually it was a pretty hard to get to here and like actually settle in and everything. It was pretty hard to actually find housing and stuff like that. But we eventually got it figured out um a summer dorm at avery university that worked out for housing and then for transportation. That was a last minute thing. My internship started on monday. I got here sunday. I had to find um a way to get to work and back and do my groceries and everything. So what we did was was we went to Walmart and we got an e-bike. So that's how I've been going around everywhere. So housing, transportation and then food groceries. My mom actually packed me so much food like frozen meat and stuff and burgers and stuff, so she really helped me out on that.

Caleb Ayers:

Good, that's a classic mom move right there in a great way and that's over preparing um. So what have you been working on in this role this summer?

Moiz Fakhri:

so for our manufacturing advancement internship, on the three of us uh, daniel thomas and me we've been working on this one big project that has so many, so many layers to it.

Moiz Fakhri:

So the big project overall is an ongoing student success predictor for the ATDM program that we have here at ILR. So what it's supposed to do is take in all the data that we collect throughout the week's ongoing ATDM student data, such as grades, attendance, stuff like that and basically we're trying to predict whether they will graduate or not, predict whether they'll be employed or not, and what those predictions do is really just help the ATDM staff be able to intervene when necessary when a student is struggling. So let's say, our student predictor predicts the student will graduate but might not be employed, so the ATDM staff will go in and intervene and provide career services or something to help them be employed in the future. So that sounds pretty simple. But to actually get that working, it has so many layers to it and as we continue throughout the internship it just gets more and more and more complicated and we found found out that we're running out of time now. So eventually Meredith and Alex have to pick that, pick up on that.

Caleb Ayers:

Those are managers and so you're saying that's not just looking at success after like, it's not just looking at once they graduate, it's looking at like during milestones, during their yeah exactly while they're in the program itself.

Moiz Fakhri:

we have to predict week by week. Basically it's a weekly thing, daily. We could try to do a daily thing, but that gets a little complicated because you know, yeah, so mostly weekly predictions for student success so they can intervene.

Caleb Ayers:

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, what have been your kind of big takeaways? What have you learned? What's been, yeah, um, what have been your kind of big takeaways? What?

Moiz Fakhri:

have you learned? What's been? Yeah, what stood out to you? Yeah, so coming into this internship, I really just thought it would be. I asked actually emailed meredith before I got here I was like, okay, I got this internship, now how can I prepare for it? What should I brush up on, and stuff like that. She told me, focus on python coding most for most of the part. So that's what I got started on doing and stuff, and I knew it had something to do with machine learning. I didn't know how involved it would be, but that's not a bad thing at all, because that's exactly what I was trying to do. I was trying to land something that you know is relevant to what I'm trying to get at, and so that turned out to be really good.

Moiz Fakhri:

So originally, when I came here before I came here, actually I emailed Meredith about asking her like, what should I prepare on and how should I prepare for this internship? She mostly told me to focus on my Python coding skills and stuff like that. So that's what I did and when I actually got here I realized it's actually way more than just Python coding we had to go into like machine learning and more advanced concept, which is actually a good thing, because that's what I wanted to do in the end. I learned mostly while doing the work, so it's a lot of advanced stuff like, for example, scikit-learn is a model that we use for machine learning, and I had no experience prior experience for that related thing. So a lot of my time over here was spent on watching YouTube tutorials on how to do coding for machine learning and stuff and apply that in real time, and I had some amazing mentors like Alex and Meredith to help me along the way where I got stuck and stuff like that, so it's been a great learning experience.

Caleb Ayers:

You just said that very well, you just learned it while you did it. That's basically what an internship should be All right, rapid fire, real quick. Favorite YouTube channel. Favorite.

Moiz Fakhri:

YouTube channel Veritasium. It's a science-based YouTube channel. He's really great with his videos like 30, 40 minutes. He goes into physics concepts and it's really counterintuitive. I recommend everyone watch that YouTube channel.

Caleb Ayers:

There you go. What's your caffeine of choice? Coffee, tea, energy drinks none of the above.

Moiz Fakhri:

I recently got into Monster Monster energy drinks. I actually got introduced to that by Thomas here, some all-nighters.

Caleb Ayers:

So you've been more productive this summer. That's awesome. Well, thanks for being here. Some all-nighters so you've been more productive this summer. Definitely that's awesome. Well, thanks for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you All. Right, and now we have Dakota Younger, who's a GoTech intern here. So thanks for being here. So tell me a little bit kind of about your educational background and how you ended up here working with GoTech this summer.

Dakotah Younger:

So I'm going to be going to school at Virginia Tech for mechanical engineering. I'm going to be going to school at Virginia Tech for mechanical engineering and I'm pursuing a bachelor's degree there. But as far as how I ended up here at the Institute, well, I was looking for something to add to my resume and kind of like a segue into the engineering field, and that's when I was looking and found an opportunity to apply for the go-tech position.

Caleb Ayers:

And tell me a little bit about kind of what you've been doing this summer.

Dakotah Younger:

The main things that we've been doing in go-tech is teacher trainings, and then we've also had several field trips where the kids came to visit in the lab and they were affiliated with the Piedmont Regional Governor's School. So for the field trips we would set up several different little activities for them, whether that be the Dobot mechanical arms or the circuit breadboards, the Arduinos, and we would run through several activities with them. For example, we made traffic stoplights on the Arduino boards and then with the Dobots we had several different pick-and-place activities for them to see kind of like an example of what robotics and manufacturing looks like in real life. And with the teacher trainings that is just kind of an array of all the GoTech lab equipment, kind of an array of all the go-tech lab equipment. It's just kind of whatever they want to go over.

Dakotah Younger:

But we've been pushing really pushing the Haas desktop mill because a lot of the teachers feel like they're not as certain, they're not as comfortable with that right. So we've also been working on like kind of streamlining that process. We have a video out now for the teachers to watch if they need help on it, and then also we're kind of making like a cheat sheet for them to have and just be able to look at if they're unsure on how to run a program or anything like that. But we've been through the virtual welders with the teachers, we've been through the Haas desktop mill, we've been through 3D printing circuit boards really anything that they just feel uncertain about.

Caleb Ayers:

on the Go Tech curriculum and what were kind of your expectations coming into this summer and how did this internship either how was it like those expectations or how was it completely different.

Dakotah Younger:

Honestly, I didn't know exactly what to expect when I was coming here. I had never been to the Institute really, and I was unsure how hands-on I was going to be with all this stuff, whether I was going to be working with a lot of people more like communications or working on individual projects. But it definitely came out to be that the go-tech position is definitely more about teaching and working with kids and teachers and kind of like building a relationship between the two and being able to just provide them with what they need, the information that they need, and I will say it's a very professional environment at the Institute and I do get along pretty well with that.

Caleb Ayers:

It's pretty nice. How do you think that this internship kind of helped you prepare for your future career?

Dakotah Younger:

As a whole. It has helped me make a lot of connections and possible future relationships in the field. But just working in a professional environment and a team setting is very important, I think, especially for engineers, because you'd normally work in work in teams on designing different parts of things and there's different people that specialize at different things and specifically with the GoTech team, it's just everyone has their own role and I think that's important to get a feel of.

Caleb Ayers:

Now real quick, quick, rapid fire, fun stuff. What is your favorite food? Fried chicken, maybe. Good choice, good choice. What do you do after work? Normally go to the gym or go fishing. If you could instantly master one hobby, what, what would it be? Fishing, 100 percent. Thanks for being here, appreciate it.