It is always a highlight to see our IEPers in action at their internship sites, and this summer was no exception. The feedback IEP received from host companies and/or interns at Bischof & Klein, BMW, Bosch, Coplan, DLR, Mercedes and Porsche was overwhelmingly positive. IEPers highlighted the open and welcoming environment, the feeling of being charged with highly responsible projects, the opportunity to perfect their German proficiency and the chance to make a real impact. They were hosted for private BBQs or arranged dinners at their place for team colleagues. This cohort of GIEPers was simply fantastic, with six out of nine conducting credit bearing research projects at TU Braunschweig ahead of their six-month internship, and eight out of nine passing one or several difficult engineering courses in German.
On the company side, a few described the interns’ efforts as “extraordinary”, “super”, “best intern in my lifetime” or simply “we will be very sad to see the student go and hope he will remain in touch with us.”
IEPers do not just work hard, they also seize the opportunity to travel. Destinations of one of the most adventurous travelers, Jorge Menacho, civil engineering & German IEP ’25, included Montenegro in the Balkans and northern Norway. Here a selection of sites from the Baltic States he visited:
Others enjoyed exploring their immediate environment like Kevin and Patrick Raczkowski on a world famous race track!
This is the same track where Dr. May of Bosch also showed off his cycling skills freshly equipped with URI branded socks!
An IEP survey revealed that our entire cohort of students interning in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Taiwan unanimously answered that they would by all means recommend their company to future interns, and that they had an incredible year they would not want to miss despite having to overcome the usual challenges with housing and logistics abroad.
Here are selected internship projects of our IEP 2023-2024 cohort:
Brandon Yeh, electrical engineering & Chinese IEP ’24, worked at KLINGER Die Erste in Taipei! He assisted in numerous different projects including research on the company’s electric actuators and its features and also used his other language and global competences. To fulfill the requirements of the generous Boren Scholarship he received for study abroad in Taiwan, Brandon needs to work for a US government agency and is awaiting their go-ahead to apply.
Aidan Kindopp, chemical engineering & French IEP ’24, will pursue a Ph.D. at MIT starting this fall. He chose a research-oriented internship at the CIRIMAT lab (Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d’ingénierie des matériaux) in Toulouse, France. Here, researchers are addressing both fundamental and applied topics in materials science and engineering such as fabricating macroporous scaffolds for bone regeneration. Within the scope of his internship, Aidan was tasked with developing an in-silico model of a freeze-casting system with the goal of predicting the porous nature of a finished scaffold by integrating heat transfer theory and crystal nucleation/growth theory to propose the crystallization kinetics within the system as a function of spatial position and time.
Carlos Fragoso Uriarte, mechanical engineering & Italian IEP ’25, worked on a project that consisted of developing a model for a hydrogen generation plant powered by a solar array. This was done to aid Graded S.p.A. in Naples in developing estimates on the feasibility of their project and how much hydrogen could be generated in a given span of time using only excess energy to power the equipment.
Sara Hamada, biomedical engineering & Spanish IEP ’24, developed software to visualize antenna radiated fields, improving analysis precision and user experience. Additionally, she conducted validations for electromagnetic measurements in the anechoic chamber pictured below that Antenna Systems Solutions had on-site, optimized data management systems, and initiated a VR project for immersive antenna measurement visualization. Sara was offered to work for her company full-time and will pursue a master’s degree at URI starting next spring.
Alex Jedsen, mechanical engineering & Spanish IEP ’25, completed his internship at BCN1, Amazon’s main fulfillment center in Barcelona. Within the company, he worked for the EU ATS ACES ST Yard team, which is tasked with developing the autonomous yard of the future by implementing continuous improvement projects across fulfillment centers in the EU. He got the chance to assist with a variety of projects to help make the yards more safe and efficient for both independent truck drivers and Amazon associates. Alex had to go through several rounds of a competitive Amazon application process in both English and Spanish at Amazon!
Ethan Jedsen ’25, Alex’s twin brother in the International Business Program with Spanish, interned as an Administrative Assistant for OneDirect in Barcelona. As part of that experience, he helped to execute business to business sales, acquiring and managing key corporate clients. In addition, he helped to audit the accounting and management systems to ensure accurate reporting and compliance with European regulations.
Nicole Mendoza, chemical engineering & Spanish IEP ’24, completed her internship in the R&D Lab of Advanced Materials for Nurel in Zaragoza, Spain. Her project was to work with a semi batch polymerization reactor to improve the thermal stability of nylon 6, and prevent oxidation of the finished polymer. Nicole landed this internship through a LinkedIn connection. She saw that one of their employees went to UNIZAR and had been an exchange student at URI for one semester! Great networking! This September, Nicole will start a position with AirProducts & Chemicals as a Proposals Engineer for Process Gases and Green H2 Product Lines as part of their Career Development Program in Allentown, PE.
Liz Ferrenti, chemical engineering & Spanish IEP ’25, conducted research pertaining to the fractionation of biomass-derived pyrolysis oil and subsequently testing one of those fractions in a batch reactor with different catalysts and feedstocks with the goal of hydrodeoxygenation of the oil fraction to produce high quality jet fuel. This internship was a research position with the Thermochemical Processes Group (GPT) at the University of Zaragoza.
Owen Hefferman, mechanical engineering & German IEP ’25, worked at the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) in Stade. He had come prepared with a summer of interning at NASA in Florida and really loved the collaborative, hands-on projects he got to be involved in this spring/summer. DLR is collaborating with Airbus on the storage of hydrogen as fuel for airplanes and his group helps with the 3D printing of pipes. Owen assisted with several, among them perfecting a host pump which pumps 80C resin used in forms, another an automated cutting bench for the pipes. He needed to cut open the pipes to take samples and examine them under the microscope to identify any problems. A third project is a “hovercraft” designed to detect leaks during vacuum forming.
Gianni Smith, electrical engineering & German IEP ’25, worked on an AI for DC series arc fault detection at Siemens Energy in Erlangen. The goal was to optimize the algorithms to run on low-power STM32 microcontrollers with low sampling frequency and fast detection time. Gianni plans to pursue a Ph.D. with Dr. Yeonho Jeong at URI in the near future.
Patrick Raczkowski, mechanical engineering & German IEP ’25, was responsible for the development of the steering systems and total vehicle assembly. He not only tested and evaluated the acoustic behavior of both the steering and chassis components, but also designed test fixtures to further develop the group’s test methods at BMW in Munich.
At Porsche in Zuffenhausen, Kevin Raczkowski, mechanical engineering & German IEP ’25, was responsible for conducting pass-by noise tests at the overall vehicle level. Additionally, he carried out tire noise measurements across various models, horn vibration and acoustic analysis, as well as contributed to the research and development of pedestrian alerting systems.
At Mercedes in Sindelfingen, Oskar Schnippering, electrical engineering & German IEP ’24, worked in the Wiring Harness Development department. He integrated a novel 3D scan technology to aid in the generation of 3D models in the production line. Oskar started a position at the East Providence location of the German bearing solutions supplier IGUS Inc. this September!
Max Steiger, supply chain management & German IBP ’24, completed a hands-on internship at Bischof+Klein in Lengerich. During his time there, he was afforded the opportunity to complete a comprehensive root cause analysis of various internal processes.
Kassia Almeida, industrial engineering & Spanish IEP ’24, was a Product Supply Intern at P&G’s Baby Wipes plant in Mequinenza, Spain. During her internship, she focused on Shipment Logistics, Warehouse Management, and Product Development. She led a team to improve container fill rates for shipments to South Africa, addressing rising transportation costs. Kassia also designed a warehouse and created an inventory system, including storage procedures. Additionally, she implemented cost-saving changes in product development, optimizing materials like substrate, film, and lotion for our wipes.
Michaella Junge, chemical engineering & German IEP, who is part of next year’s cohort, landed a prestigious RISE (Research in Science and Engineering) scholarship funded by the German government. She has been interning in TU Braunschweig’s Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology led by Dr. Heike Bunjes and very much enjoyed the DAAD RISE Scholar get-together in Heidelberg this July!
Visiting the 2023-2024 generation abroad also allowed Dr. Berka to secure places for the next cohort of 2024-2025. She visited with mechanical engineering & German IEP alum Andrew Moakes. Andrew is Co-Founder and CPO of Evitado Technologies, a company focusing on collision avoidance systems. Evitado has developed LiDAR based collision avoidance systems for the aviation industry to reduce risk of accidents during ground movements of aircraft. Andrew got the idea for this start-up when working on his capstone design project. Through the IEP, Andrew had interned at the ZF Friedrichshafen AG in 2012, joined their Management Trainee program and worked for ZF TRW for several years in the UK before getting a simultaneous M.S. in Mechanical Engineering & Management from Hamburg University of Technology and an MBA from NIT (Northern Institute of Technology Management) in 2018. Andrew lives in Hamburg with his family and they just welcomed their second child into this world.
Andrew is interested in hosting mechanical and computer engineering, computer science and supply chain management interns. He offered Dakota Watjen, German IBP & supply chain major, who will study at HAW Hamburg in the fall, a chance to connect once he has arrived in Hamburg to discuss interning at Evitado!
