The Research Park gathered to celebrate the most outstanding interns across its 120+ companies at the 15th annual Intern Awards, the longest-running event in the Research Park. Fittingly, the ceremony was held on Thursday, July 29, National Intern Day. The students honored as finalists and winners encompass a variety of disciplines, majors, and colleges from across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, exemplifying the nature of interdisciplinary work that happens at Research Park companies. This summer intern program format has been like no other, with some students working on-site, some completely remote, and some working in a hybrid format. Regardless, these interns formed connections with peers and co-workers and made lasting impressions on their supervisors. These interns have impacted the Research Park and their employers through the countless projects they conceived, worked diligently on, and followed through to completion. Thank you to all the managers who took the time to nominate their students. Thank you to the panel of professionals who judged these awards. Award Categories: Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Startup Most Outstanding Undergraduate Intern Most Outstanding Graduate Intern Best Technical Innovation Award Best Non-Technical Innovation Award Most Competent and Collaborative Team Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Startup Olivia Rentz PSYONIC Mechatronics Intern Undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering “Olivia has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to manage multi-disciplinary tasks on our team. When she started in January 2021, she was tasked with several manufacturing & assembly projects which she quickly mastered. Several weeks into her internship, we were shocked to learn that she had no prior experience with any of the tools she was using to complete these tasks and had nonetheless learned to use them skillfully in a short period. Olivia has exhibited an absolute exemplary work ethic: always giving 100% on every task, eager to take on more responsibilities, and frequently staying late in the evenings to finish important projects or assist the rest of the team with crunch deadlines. She has driven for hours across the midwest to visit patients in person and help them install and troubleshoot their new prosthetic hand. Overall, she fully exemplifies the qualities of an incredible intern who goes above and beyond, and would be an extremely deserving recipient.” Finalists: Daniel Gealow, SimBioSys Computational Biologist Intern Undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering | Grainger College of Engineering Molly Izzi, Ascent Integrated Tech Graphic Design Intern Undergraduate in Graphic Design | College of Fine & Applied Arts Most Outstanding Undergraduate Intern Daniel Polites, State Farm Actuarial & Modeling Intern Undergraduate in Actuarial Science | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “Daniel has been taking on a project which will provide the ratemaking guidance from the farm and ranch line of business at State Farm, using a multivariate Generalized Linear Model, to help State Farm better match price to risk. Daniels sets as a great role model of continuously seeking ways of working more effectively and efficiently. The planning efforts of fun activities Daniel leads help shape the RDC philosophy of “the internship is not only about work but also having fun at work”, and to make the internship a very unique experience for our interns. Daniel is considered a strong technical lead on his projects” Finalists: Nicholas (Nico) Lavalle , Actuarial & Modeling Intern Undergraduate in Statistics | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Xi (Adam) Zhao, Corteva Data Science Intern Undergraduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering Neil Kaushikkar COUNTRY Financial Software Developer – Project Manager Undergraduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering Most Outstanding Graduate Intern Eddie Chapman, AbbVie Library Information Specialist Graduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering “For the almost four years he has been with us, he has truly been a collaborator on these projects, and he takes full ownership of them, responsibility for them, and pride in them, as he should. Eddie will fix the bugs, meet deadlines, explain clearly why some can’t be met, support a release, and even present his work to customers – all this is true. His development work supporting SimpleTools lets users design or reuse the strategies they want using the power of ontologies, and then a bot can perform repetitive tasks of waiting for results and sending them to the customer on the back end. Another tool, LISToolkit, for which Eddie is responsible for most of the development, allows search team members to perform text and hedge manipulation at the click of a button that in the past had required an open notepad document and knowledge of regular expressions – very error-prone work for a human that Eddie’s tools make so much simpler and consistent.” Finalists: Aadish Naik, Brunswick Perception Engineering Intern Graduate in Electrical and Computer Engineering Anisha Jauhauri, Corteva Software Development Intern Graduate in Information Management Pranay Thangeda, Corteva Summer Research Intern Graduate in Aerospace Engineering Best Technical Innovation Award Arif Syraj , EarthSense Data Science Intern Undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering | Grainger College of Engineering “Arif has exemplified the top-notch go-getter attitude that a startup employee needs to have to be successful. He has shown great initiative, starting off as a volunteer, and quickly climbing the ranks to be paid intern, and now has a full-time offer from us. The algorithm developed and deployed by Arif has been extensively tested against manual measurements and it has shown a strong correlation. This is a very positive move since our customers typically went with our competition (drone companies) to do the measurement of the height trait, but now our data shows that we are more accurate and reliable than drone measurements.” Finalists: David Liu Yahoo Intern I, Technica Undergraduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering Aman Khinvasara, AARP Strategic Integration & Talent (ITS) Intern Undergraduate in Computer Engineering | Grainger College of Engineering Gautham Krishnan, Corteva Contracted Student Researcher Graduate in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Best Non-Technical Innovation Anna Chi, Brunswick i-Jet Industrial Design Intern Undergraduate in Industrial Design | College of Fine & Applied Arts “Anna has worked on a variety of really cool projects revolving
