By Joy Bian ’17
Students have returned to the University of Rochester campus, and classes begin August 31.
Several students are coming off interesting summer internships from all over the country, where they gained real-life experience in fields they hope to pursue after graduation.
Junior mechanical engineering major Wendy Snyder, from Ossining, N.Y., was on Ballard’s Nautilus, an ocean exploration vessel off the California coast. Her job was to pilot one of two Roving Operational Vehicles sent unmanned to the ocean floor.
She boarded the Nautilus on July 25 in San Diego and sailed until August 20.
“The first day I was basically thrown in feet first and started working on the ROVs,” she said. “As an ROV engineering intern, she helped conduct a detailed inspection of all systems and parts of the vehicle to ensure everything was working properly.
“We have a wide variety of spare parts and tools available to us on board in order to aid us in repairs but we are still limited by what is on board unless we are due for a port stop,” Snyder said.
One ROV named Argus is attached directly to the ship via a steel cable and winch, and the second, named Hercules, is attached to Argus via a tether.
“My job was to pilot Argus, so I had control of all the lights and cameras on the vehicle, as well as thrusters to turn the vehicle side to side and a control for the winch to adjust the depth of the vehicle,” she said.
From the station in the control van, she could access many of the controls for Hercules and act as co-pilot, adjusting, lights, cameras, or sampling equipment as needed.
To achieve the educational and research purposes, the video from the vehicles on the seafloor is sent to a satellite to get it ashore and then streamed live online 24 hours a day at nautiluslive.org. During dives, each person in the control van has a headset used to both communicate with other working colleagues and provide a dialogue for online listeners. There are also opportunities while aboard to participate in live video Q&A interactions with local schools, camps, aquariums, museums and more.
“Being on the ship I was surrounded by a wide variety of people from different backgrounds including oceanographers, biologists, geologists, archaeologists, educators, video engineers, and artists as well as engineers,” Snyder said. “Even though I was there to learn about engineering and ROVs, I learned a lot about ocean biology, geology and archaeology as well just from working with and being around such a wide variety of people.”
What were other students up to this summer?
Brain power
Tyler Trine, a senior from Wolcott majoring in data science, has always been interested in how the brain works. After completing his internship at 1010data in New York City this summer, he has accumulated a rich theoretical knowledge of mathematics, statistics, and computer science.
“The data science major is the perfect marriage of my interests,” Trine says. “It takes a completely interdisciplinary approach, which is a huge Rochester strength.”
1010data is a technology company focused on delivering business intelligence to just about every kind of company out there. When a company cannot handle the amount of data it collects, 1010data’s powerful servers can, and they can provide actionable insight on the data that can improve marketing efforts and business performance. Trine’s job was to create a user interface allowing people to enter data by hand.
Joining a technology company like 1010data means a strong background in statistics and mathematics is needed.
“I’m confident that what I learned there, coupled with what I’m learning at the University, will create a really strong foundation for my career,” he said. “After this summer, I feel I understand the term ‘big data’ better. Specifically, I learned that there’s no one way to understand large data sets. You always have to pay attention to what kind of data it is, and what kinds of knowledge you want to extract from it.”
Developing Apps
Lauren Kemperman of Boston is a junior pursuing a dual major in math and statistics. She and friend Jean Chakmakas, a junior from Albany majoring in data science, interned at an electrical and computer engineering lab on campus.
The two worked on an app this summer to help parents monitor and control childrens’ asthma, meeting with professors and other collaborators.
“I was more into back end coding and structure that made the app functional and building a remote database for storing info,” Kemperman said. “Jean is really good at layout and making the overall look of the app.”
After a whole summer’s hard work, this app is now being tested by other people who work in wireless communication networking group and by a focus group of people from the medical center and American lung association. It will be soon available on Google Play. Kemperman already has fallen in love with the application development. She will continue working in the lab this semester and make it compatible for IOS as well.
Investing in the future
Pittsford’s Tylar Guerrieri is a basketball player and business major. Her dad, Sam, played football at Aquinas Institute in Rochester and is in the University of Rochester Athletics Hall of Fame.
On the threshold of her senior year, Guerrieri decided to intern at Broadstone Real Estate, an investment trust in downtown Rochester to accumulate some real-world experience related to her major. As a team member at Investor Relations, she focused more on researching areas that could help grow and bring value to the company.
She was quite involved in various projects such as an Investor Performance Reporting project, a project to determine RIA (Registered Investment Advisors) Opportunities, and a Mapping Project.
30Rock
Senior Kathryn Montgomery, a field hockey player from Garden City, N.Y., worked at NBC’s 30 Rock in New York City. She was a “duopoly” human resources intern for WNBC-News 4 NY and WNJU – Telemundo 47. As a psychology major and legal studies minor, she bridged the employee-relations gap between both stations.
Tennis, anyone?
Ben Shapiro of Scarsdale, N.Y., is a senior majoring in English with a concentration on language, media and communication. He has playled on the men’s tennis team since freshman year. This summer, he worked as tennis pro for The Whippoorwill Club in Armonk. His students come from various backgrounds of many different abilities. Always intrigued by sports journalism, he will start an internship at the Daily Messenger in Canandaigua this fall.
Healthy software
Brian Caputo, a sophomore from Silver Lake, New Hampshire, plans to double major in business and statistics. He worked with the Echo Group in North Conway, N.H., this summer and learned a lot about behavioral health, statistics, and some programming skills, in addition to various workplace-related skills.
“Echo Group develops electronic health software for behavioral health organizations,” Caputo said. “Specifically, I created dashboards and various graphs and tables using live client data, which allowed the organizations to analyze their client’s demographics and relative success at treating their clients.”
Police files
Cassie Mahar, a senior from Charleston, Mass., was the lone intern in the executive office of the chief of police for Washington, D.C. She was in charge of requests for information from the community on topics ranging from littering laws to the controversial body worn camera debate.
“My internship was a very rigourous and enjoyable one,” said Mahar, who also plays women’s lacrosse for Rochester. “I typically worked a 9-5 job Monday through Thursdays, with Fridays off for seminars and workshops hosted by the Washington Center Program.”
Mahar says her classes at the University of Rochester helped her prepare for her internship.
“They taught me the correct techniques to research and analyze information in a quick and efficient manner,” she said. “I’ve learned to hone my reading abilities to extract the important information.”