July 28, 2025 • 25 mins
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.
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research serves as a regional catalyst for economic transformation in Southern Virginia. Our services, programs and offerings are diverse, impactful and far reaching.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Caleb Ayers (00:09):
Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR.
Thanks for being here today.
So today we have sort of a funepisode.
We're a huge proponent ofinternships here at the
Institute for Advanced Learningand Research and we support
companies in developing theirown internships programs and
onboarding internships andthings like that, providing
resources for them to do that.
But we also try to practicewhat we preach and host interns
(00:30):
here as well, and this summer wehad 18 interns who are working
across our campus in the monthsof June and July and a little
bit into August and we are goingto interview five of them to
hear about their experiences,their time here at the Institute
for Advanced Learning andResearch.
This summer we hostedinternships across our different
departments and divisions.
I mean, we have interns who areworking in research and
(00:55):
conducting experiments and wehave interns in our advanced
learning divisions supportingdifferent programs.
We have interns inmanufacturing advancement who
are working with things likeaugmented reality and virtual
reality and machine learning andthings like that.
We have interns in economicdevelopment, doing research and
data analysis all sorts of areasin our organization where we
bring interns in, teach them theropes, show them the ropes and
(01:15):
let them learn in a veryhands-on way.
So next up we have interviewswith five different interns who
spent their time with us thissummer.
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 aboutyourself and kind of how you
found this internship.
Grayson Snead (01:31):
I grew up here.
Um, I live in Ringgold so Iwent to Dan River.
I came to Piedmont Governor'sSchool I didn't graduate that
long ago so I knew the.
The ILR did internships andthey offered summer internships
and I saw the ones they postedthis year and I was like that's,
that's kind of cool, like Iwant to do that Cool.
Caleb Ayers (01:46):
I mean, are you interested in pursuing a career
in research?
I am yeah, so what is?
What is your kind of careergoals and aspirations?
Grayson Snead (01:53):
Um, I want to go into like virology.
I like viruses and disease,maybe immunology, so I've just
something to get exposure to thefield of research.
Obviously I'm I'm not superplant-based, but it's kind of
those core skills that you learnSure Good to learn anywhere.
Caleb Ayers (02:10):
And what have you been working on this summer?
Grayson Snead (02:12):
I've been doing stuff with bacterial endophytes,
so just things you put in aplant that doesn't cause any
harm.
But you want to see some kindof growth from it, some
increased yields, maybe betterplant quality all around.
Caleb Ayers (02:29):
So I've been working with those in broccoli
microgreens to see if they doanything productive.
Grayson Snead (02:31):
And what does that experiment look like?
Has it been working out?
It's not the bacteria we chosehave been used here before by
some of the researchers here andthey showed increased growth.
So I'm not sure if it's justthe plant that we used we used
broccoli microgreens or if itwas something in our
experimental design that needsto be tweaked.
But so far, nothing significant.
Caleb Ayers (02:48):
But what have you learned from?
Because was that your firsttime running an experiment?
Grayson Snead (02:52):
It was my second time I did something here in
high school, but this was a lotmore involved and a lot more
hands-on.
Caleb Ayers (02:57):
So what have you learned through that process?
Grayson Snead (02:59):
I'd say just the research process.
Obviously, it's not great toget non-significant results, but
those are still results andthey're still productive.
Um, I didn't do, I didn't buildthe experimental design from
like the ground up.
A lot of that was, um, myadvisor, but it was kind of like
here's our core thing that weneed to do figure out how to do
it.
Um, obviously everybody's beensuper helpful, but it's it was
(03:21):
very a lot of freedom and it'skind of like playing scientist,
of like I'm not really qualifiedto do any of this stuff, so
it's like figuring out along theway is pretty cool.
Caleb Ayers (03:30):
So that's been fun and who has been your, your,
advisor this summer.
Grayson Snead (03:33):
Dr Kaylee South.
Caleb Ayers (03:34):
okay, she's great yeah, super awesome and so you
mentioned, you know, that you'reinterested in pursuing a career
in kind of immunology virology.
How are you planning to getlike?
What are, what are the nextsteps on your path to get there?
Grayson Snead (03:44):
So I'm going to Vanderbilt in the spring or the
fall.
I transferred from FurmanUniversity in Greenville, south
Carolina, and I'm working in alab there.
I just got into that lab andthey're doing rotavirus and
reovirus research, so just somestuff with that.
Not sure yet what that's goingto look like, but it's super
cool because it's just directexposure to the field.
I'll be doing undergraduateresearch, so that's great Cool.
Caleb Ayers (04:06):
You know you talked about kind of the research
process and learning a lot aboutthat this summer.
What else have been kind ofyour takeaways from this summer
internship here at IALR?
Grayson Snead (04:14):
I've done a lot of other stuff too.
We're involved in a coupleother greenhouse projects, so
not directly my projects, butwe'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 ofresearch.
It's not always the superengaging and fun thing of like
I'm doing things every day.
Sometimes I'm sitting in myoffice and just typing or just
(04:35):
reading some stuff, so justgetting to see the day-to-day of
like what realistic researchlooks like it's not
groundbreaking every day.
It's not always super fun.
And I've come in and I've donethere's days I haven't even gone
out to the greenhouse Um, I'veswept the greenhouse a lot.
We mop sometimes.
So just like it's, this is ajob and it's um, it's fun.
Overall it's ultimately superfun, but some days are a lot
(04:58):
slower than others.
So just knowing that isimportant, I think.
Caleb Ayers (05:02):
All right, some rapid-fire questions real quick.
What's your life theme song?
Grayson Snead (05:05):
Oh, I don't know.
Hold on.
Probably it's got to be acountry song.
Uncle Penn by Ricky Skaggs.
It's a bluegrass song.
Actually.
Pause cut Highway 40 Blues byRicky Skaggs, that's a good one.
Caleb Ayers (05:17):
I don't know that song.
We'll take it.
Caffeine of choice.
Grayson Snead (05:20):
Oh, coffee yeah.
Caleb Ayers (05:22):
All right, good stuff.
Thank you, thanks for beinghere.
Now we have Dilara Soltanova,who is an intern with the
Empower program here, so thanksfor being here.
So tell me a little bit aboutkind of just how you found this
internship.
Dilara Sultanova (05:33):
I found this internship through Averitt,
through my professor, and Ithought that it's a hands-on
experience through my actualcareer, which includes the
career and technology assistant.
So I think it would be a goodcombination of helping students
out with their career workforceand also including my technical,
(05:55):
real problem-solving skills.
Caleb Ayers (05:57):
What is your kind of long-term career goals?
Dilara Sultanova (06:00):
I think it's something that includes data
engineering or applied AI.
It's like solving real problemissues that would need my
technical solving skills, andalso I'm really interested in
data structuring.
(06:21):
As I said, data engineering,working with the data systems
everything that includes that.
Caleb Ayers (06:27):
Yeah, and how has your experience this summer?
How have you seen thatcontributing to those you know,
to those career goals that youhave?
Dilara Sultanova (06:36):
I think it's been really impactful since the
day one, the trust andresponsibility that was given me
and that my thoughts was valued, and also my impact throughout
the real data and impactfulprojects I've been working with,
as contributing to the EmpowerExchange and also creating a
(07:01):
calendar for young professionalsso they won't be feeling that
they will be just working ondaily 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 codethrough Python and Jupyter
Notebook so I could be useful indevelopment of workforce, I
(07:26):
would say.
Caleb Ayers (07:27):
And you mentioned a couple of those things you've
been working on the EmpowerExchange event, which I know is
coming up, or yeah, by the timethis publishes, will be about to
happen.
I know you've been helping ourteam with the creation of a new
website for the Career ChoiceExpo.
So kind of what have been someof your favorite things that
you've done so far this summer,whether that be, you know,
(07:47):
specifically a work project orjust getting to hang out around
campus or with interns oranything like that.
Dilara Sultanova (07:52):
I think the main thing I've been busy with
is creating an automated datastructured system.
That will be an automatedsystem that will extract data
from the scanned PDFs of thecareer choice expo, youth, youth
expo surveys.
(08:12):
So it will be a addedautomation and not added
manually like 4 000 surveyswould be hard to add manually.
So I would try to create anautomated system through
combining ai tools and also withthe combining ai tools with the
python code, so I would get anextracted data from the PDFs and
(08:38):
make a constructed Excelspreadsheet.
So it will be useful and alldata will be correct without any
mistakes.
And also I think that it was anhonor for me to work on the
query choice microsite.
I think it was great in orderfor me to see the structure, how
they trust me in, how to designand work on structure in the
(09:01):
point of view of the educators,students and employers.
Caleb Ayers (09:04):
I think in the past interns have had the job of
manually typing in the data fromthose surveys.
So that's cool that you justdid a job that will save future
interns from doing that job.
Anything else that you want toadd?
Dilara Sultanova (09:17):
I just want to say thank you to ALR, to all
departments that I've beenworking on, to get to know them,
for giving me opportunity totake a place in meaningful
projects to make an impact onwhat they're working on.
Caleb Ayers (09:31):
Yeah Well, thanks for being here, and now we have
some quick, rapid-fire, funquestions.
Dogs or cats.
Dilara Sultanova (09:37):
Dogs.
Caleb Ayers (09:38):
Do you listen to music or not while you work?
Dilara Sultanova (09:40):
When I'm bored .
Caleb Ayers (09:41):
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 DanielOlasoko, who's one of the
manufacturing advancementinterns here at IALR.
Thanks for being here.
So, to start, tell us a littlebit about, kind of, how you
found out about this internship.
Daniel Olasoko (09:58):
So I was searching for an internship
because I was trying to gainexperience this summer.
Then I was on LinkedIn.
I saw the posts like thepostings for the openings at the
institute, so I applied to thisone.
I saw one regarding the smarttables, but I'd done something
with them last year, so I wantedto try something else.
And I read the job description.
It talked about machinelearning using Python and a lot
(10:20):
of fun things.
So I was like, yeah, let me gofor this.
Caleb Ayers (10:23):
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 Imean, I know that there's five
of you this summer, right, sotell me a little bit about, kind
of the projects that you guyshave been working on this summer
.
Daniel Olasoko (10:36):
So we're kind of divided, but three of us work
on the same thing.
Then the other two are doingseparate things.
But the team I'm on the goal isto create a custom algorithm
that will predict the likelihoodof students from the ATDM
graduating and getting employed.
So we are using data from theATDM program, like grades,
attendance, and the first stepwe do is clean the data, then
(11:00):
doing feature engineering,trying to find features between
the data and doing visuals, withall done with Python.
So we've been coding most ofthe time.
Then at this point we'retesting our model.
So we chose a model.
We're testing it right now,then after that it should be
ready for deployment.
Caleb Ayers (11:18):
That's pretty awesome.
So what was kind of the whenyou walked in, were you given
the here's exactly how to dothis, or were you given a here's
what we want to do?
You guys figure it out.
Daniel Olasoko (11:27):
So they have the project title and the project
description, of course.
So our manager described whatwe had to do and there were
already some set tasks.
So every two weeks we havesprint planning and, like, each
person picks the task they wantto do.
So there was kind of a layoutof what we had to do, but also
within ourselves we like pickedwhat we wanted to do and how to
do it.
So there's the idea of whatwe're trying to accomplish, but
(11:49):
in some sense it's still up tous to do it how we want to do it
that's fun, that's kind of howthe real workplace works, so
that's that sounds like goodexperience for you all.
Caleb Ayers (11:57):
And what have you kind of taken away from this
internship this summer?
Daniel Olasoko (12:01):
so I've had some experience with coding, but not
this often coding like everyday.
So that's a good experience forme, because there's some things
I already knew from school I'mjust learning in my own time and
there's some things I'mlearning along the way, so I'm
learning more and growing myskill set.
Also, working with a team, soI'm working with other people
and going back and forth,communicating.
Well, that has been like askill that I would say I've
(12:25):
gotten better in.
Caleb Ayers (12:25):
And what are kind of your career goals after you
finish school?
Or I guess, yeah, what are youstudying?
What are your career goalsafter you finish school?
Daniel Olasoko (12:32):
So I'm studying computer science and I'm going
to my senior year this fall.
I plan to work in thecybersecurity field, something
in the lines of that.
So I'll get an entry-levelposition, hopefully, and grow
from there.
Caleb Ayers (12:46):
And how do you think this experience this
summer kind of helped prepareyou for your future career?
Daniel Olasoko (12:51):
As I said, I was thinking of cybersecurity, but
being exposed to this.
We're doing some data sciencetype of things, so I might also
possibly consider a career indata science.
I just never thought of itbecause I have not been exposed
to it, so this has opened myeyes to a different path in
computer science.
Caleb Ayers (13:09):
That's really cool.
What has been kind of yourfavorite parts of working here
at IALR this summer?
Daniel Olasoko (13:14):
My favorite part Working with the team.
The team I'm working with aregreat.
Like everyone is really helpful, and the projects I'm working
on is also a really interestingproject that could benefit the
ATDM.
Caleb Ayers (13:25):
All right, rapid fire, real quick.
If you could instantly masterone hobby, what would it be?
Daniel Olasoko (13:29):
Master one hobby how to fly a plane.
Caleb Ayers (13:32):
That's a good one.
Board hobby how to fly a planethat's a good one.
Board games or video games,video games.
Okay, what do you do after work?
Daniel Olasoko (13:38):
Go to the gym.
Caleb Ayers (13:40):
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 bitkind of about your I guess
career and education backgroundand how you ended up with this
internship here at IALR.
Moiz Fakhri (13:56):
I recently just finished high school and I
graduated and most of my highschool experience has been
primarily just academic focus solots of AP classes and stuff
like that and I wanted moreexperience in the real world.
So to make up for that, I waslooking for a summer internship
that would be related to whereI'm trying to be in the future.
(14:17):
So that's related to somethinglike artificial intelligence,
machine learning, computerscience, something like that
data science and I was justsearching through Google and I
landed on the website that youmade and I clicked apply and I
put in my resume and everything,and that's that's how I got
here.
Caleb Ayers (14:36):
That's a good, good success story of I think.
Most of our interns either arefrom either from the area or go
to school in the area, sothere's like some level of local
connection.
And you just straight up camefrom Georgia for this Me and one
other intern, surya, fromMichigan.
So what's?
What's that been like?
I mean like I mean youbasically, yeah, just came to a
whole new community.
Yeah, summer yeah it's.
Moiz Fakhri (14:57):
It's been a pretty crazy ride.
A lot of my family and friendsthey were like you're going
where all the way, all the wayin virginia, um, so I had to
actually it was a pretty hard toget to here and like actually
settle in and everything.
It was pretty hard to actuallyfind housing and stuff like that
.
But we eventually got itfigured out um a summer dorm at
(15:18):
avery university that worked outfor 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 getto work and back and do my
groceries and everything.
So what we did was was we wentto Walmart and we got an e-bike.
So that's how I've been goingaround everywhere.
(15:39):
So housing, transportation andthen food groceries.
My mom actually packed me somuch food like frozen meat and
stuff and burgers and stuff, soshe really helped me out on that
.
Caleb Ayers (15:54):
Good, that's a classic mom move right there in
a great way and that's overpreparing um.
So what have you been workingon in this role this summer?
Moiz Fakhri (16:02):
so for our manufacturing advancement
internship, on the three of usuh, daniel thomas and me we've
been working on this one bigproject that has so many, so
many layers to it.
So the big project overall is anongoing student success
predictor for the ATDM programthat we have here at ILR.
So what it's supposed to do istake in all the data that we
(16:26):
collect throughout the week'songoing ATDM student data, such
as grades, attendance, stufflike that and basically we're
trying to predict whether theywill graduate or not, predict
whether they'll be employed ornot, and what those predictions
do is really just help the ATDMstaff be able to intervene when
necessary when a student isstruggling.
(16:47):
So let's say, our studentpredictor predicts the student
will graduate but might not beemployed, so the ATDM staff will
go in and intervene and providecareer services or something to
help them be employed in thefuture.
So that sounds pretty simple.
But to actually get thatworking, it has so many layers
(17:09):
to it and as we continuethroughout the internship it
just gets more and more and morecomplicated and we found found
out that we're running out oftime now.
So eventually Meredith and Alexhave to pick that, pick up on
that.
Caleb Ayers (17:22):
Those are managers and so you're saying that's not
just looking at success afterlike, it's not just looking at
once they graduate, it's lookingat like during milestones,
during their yeah exactly whilethey're in the program itself.
Moiz Fakhri (17:34):
we have to predict week by week.
Basically it's a weekly thing,daily.
We could try to do a dailything, but that gets a little
complicated because you know,yeah, so mostly weekly
predictions for student successso they can intervene.
Caleb Ayers (17:50):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Yeah, what have been your kindof big takeaways?
What have you learned?
What's been, yeah, um, whathave been your kind of big
takeaways?
What?
Moiz Fakhri (17:57):
have you learned?
What's been?
Yeah, what stood out to you?
Yeah, so coming into thisinternship, I really just
thought it would be.
I asked actually emailedmeredith before I got here I was
like, okay, I got thisinternship, now how can I
prepare for it?
What should I brush up on, andstuff like that.
She told me, focus on pythoncoding most for most of the part
.
So that's what I got started ondoing and stuff, and I knew it
(18:17):
had something to do with machinelearning.
I didn't know how involved itwould be, but that's not a bad
thing at all, because that'sexactly what I was trying to do.
I was trying to land somethingthat you know is relevant to
what I'm trying to get at, andso that turned out to be really
good.
So originally, when I came herebefore I came here, actually I
emailed Meredith about askingher like, what should I prepare
(18:39):
on and how should I prepare forthis internship?
She mostly told me to focus onmy Python coding skills and
stuff like that.
So that's what I did and when Iactually got here I realized
it's actually way more than justPython coding we had to go into
like machine learning and moreadvanced concept, which is
actually a good thing, becausethat's what I wanted to do in
the end.
I learned mostly while doingthe work, so it's a lot of
(19:05):
advanced stuff like, for example, scikit-learn is a model that
we use for machine learning, andI had no experience prior
experience for that relatedthing.
So a lot of my time over herewas spent on watching YouTube
tutorials on how to do codingfor machine learning and stuff
and apply that in real time, andI had some amazing mentors like
(19:29):
Alex and Meredith to help mealong the way where I got stuck
and stuff like that, so it'sbeen a great learning experience
.
Caleb Ayers (19:35):
You just said that very well, you just learned it
while you did it.
That's basically what aninternship should be All right,
rapid fire, real quick.
Favorite YouTube channel.
Favorite.
Moiz Fakhri (19:45):
YouTube channel Veritasium.
It's a science-based YouTubechannel.
He's really great with hisvideos like 30, 40 minutes.
He goes into physics conceptsand it's really counterintuitive
.
I recommend everyone watch thatYouTube channel.
Caleb Ayers (19:58):
There you go.
What's your caffeine of choice?
Coffee, tea, energy drinks noneof the above.
Moiz Fakhri (20:03):
I recently got into Monster Monster energy drinks.
I actually got introduced tothat by Thomas here, some
all-nighters.
Caleb Ayers (20:13):
So you've been more productive this summer.
That's awesome.
Well, thanks for being here.
Some all-nighters so you'vebeen more productive this summer
.
Definitely that's awesome.
Well, thanks for being here.
We appreciate it.
Thank you All.
Right, and now we have DakotaYounger, who's a GoTech intern
here.
So thanks for being here.
So tell me a little bit kind ofabout your educational
background and how you ended uphere working with GoTech this
summer.
Dakotah Younger (20:29):
So I'm going to be going to school at Virginia
Tech for mechanical engineering.
I'm going to be going to schoolat Virginia Tech for mechanical
engineering and I'm pursuing abachelor's degree there.
But as far as how I ended uphere at the Institute, well, I
(20:53):
was looking for something to addto my resume and kind of like a
segue into the engineeringfield, and that's when I was
looking and found an opportunityto apply for the go-tech
position.
Caleb Ayers (21:00):
And tell me a little bit about kind of what
you've been doing this summer.
Dakotah Younger (21:04):
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 cameto visit in the lab and they
were affiliated with thePiedmont Regional Governor's
School.
So for the field trips we wouldset up several different little
(21:28):
activities for them, whetherthat be the Dobot mechanical
arms or the circuit breadboards,the Arduinos, and we would run
through several activities withthem.
For example, we made trafficstoplights on the Arduino boards
and then with the Dobots we hadseveral different
(21:53):
pick-and-place activities forthem to see kind of like an
example of what robotics andmanufacturing looks like in real
life.
And with the teacher trainingsthat is just kind of an array of
all the GoTech lab equipment,kind of an array of all the
(22:17):
go-tech lab equipment.
It's just kind of whatever theywant to go over.
But we've been pushing reallypushing the Haas desktop mill
because a lot of the teachersfeel like they're not as certain
, they're not as comfortablewith that right.
So we've also been working onlike kind of streamlining that
process.
We have a video out now for theteachers to watch if they need
help on it, and then also we'rekind of making like a cheat
(22:41):
sheet for them to have and justbe able to look at if they're
unsure on how to run a programor anything like that.
But we've been through thevirtual welders with the
teachers, we've been through theHaas desktop mill, we've been
through 3D printing circuitboards really anything that they
(23:02):
just feel uncertain about.
Caleb Ayers (23:03):
on the Go Tech curriculum and what were kind of
your expectations coming intothis summer and how did this
internship either how was itlike those expectations or how
was it completely different.
Dakotah Younger (23:13):
Honestly, I didn't know exactly what to
expect when I was coming here.
I had never been to theInstitute really, and I was
unsure how hands-on I was goingto be with all this stuff,
whether I was going to beworking with a lot of people
more like communications orworking on individual projects.
(23:36):
But it definitely came out tobe that the go-tech position is
definitely more about teachingand working with kids and
teachers and kind of likebuilding a relationship between
the two and being able to justprovide them with what they need
, the information that they need, and I will say it's a very
(23:59):
professional environment at theInstitute and I do get along
pretty well with that.
Caleb Ayers (24:06):
It's pretty nice.
How do you think that thisinternship kind of helped you
prepare for your future career?
Dakotah Younger (24:11):
As a whole.
It has helped me make a lot ofconnections and possible future
relationships in the field.
But just working in aprofessional environment and a
team setting is very important,I think, especially for
engineers, because you'dnormally work in work in teams
(24:32):
on designing different parts ofthings and there's different
people that specialize atdifferent things and
specifically with the GoTechteam, it's just everyone has
their own role and I thinkthat's important to get a feel
(24:52):
of.
Caleb Ayers (24:53):
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 gofishing.
If you could instantly masterone hobby, what, what would it
be?
Fishing, 100 percent.
Thanks for being here,appreciate it.
Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR.
Thanks for being here today.
So today we have sort of a funepisode.
We're a huge proponent ofinternships here at the
Institute for Advanced Learningand Research and we support
companies in developing theirown internships programs and
onboarding internships andthings like that, providing
resources for them to do that.
But we also try to practicewhat we preach and host interns
(00:30):
here as well, and this summer wehad 18 interns who are working
across our campus in the monthsof June and July and a little
bit into August and we are goingto interview five of them to
hear about their experiences,their time here at the Institute
for Advanced Learning andResearch.
This summer we hostedinternships across our different
departments and divisions.
I mean, we have interns who areworking in research and
(00:55):
conducting experiments and wehave interns in our advanced
learning divisions supportingdifferent programs.
We have interns inmanufacturing advancement who
are working with things likeaugmented reality and virtual
reality and machine learning andthings like that.
We have interns in economicdevelopment, doing research and
data analysis all sorts of areasin our organization where we
bring interns in, teach them theropes, show them the ropes and
(01:15):
let them learn in a veryhands-on way.
So next up we have interviewswith five different interns who
spent their time with us thissummer.
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 aboutyourself and kind of how you
found this internship.
Grayson Snead (01:31):
I grew up here.
Um, I live in Ringgold so Iwent to Dan River.
I came to Piedmont Governor'sSchool I didn't graduate that
long ago so I knew the.
The ILR did internships andthey offered summer internships
and I saw the ones they postedthis year and I was like that's,
that's kind of cool, like Iwant to do that Cool.
Caleb Ayers (01:46):
I mean, are you interested in pursuing a career
in research?
I am yeah, so what is?
What is your kind of careergoals and aspirations?
Grayson Snead (01:53):
Um, I want to go into like virology.
I like viruses and disease,maybe immunology, so I've just
something to get exposure to thefield of research.
Obviously I'm I'm not superplant-based, but it's kind of
those core skills that you learnSure Good to learn anywhere.
Caleb Ayers (02:10):
And what have you been working on this summer?
Grayson Snead (02:12):
I've been doing stuff with bacterial endophytes,
so just things you put in aplant that doesn't cause any
harm.
But you want to see some kindof growth from it, some
increased yields, maybe betterplant quality all around.
Caleb Ayers (02:29):
So I've been working with those in broccoli
microgreens to see if they doanything productive.
Grayson Snead (02:31):
And what does that experiment look like?
Has it been working out?
It's not the bacteria we chosehave been used here before by
some of the researchers here andthey showed increased growth.
So I'm not sure if it's justthe plant that we used we used
broccoli microgreens or if itwas something in our
experimental design that needsto be tweaked.
But so far, nothing significant.
Caleb Ayers (02:48):
But what have you learned from?
Because was that your firsttime running an experiment?
Grayson Snead (02:52):
It was my second time I did something here in
high school, but this was a lotmore involved and a lot more
hands-on.
Caleb Ayers (02:57):
So what have you learned through that process?
Grayson Snead (02:59):
I'd say just the research process.
Obviously, it's not great toget non-significant results, but
those are still results andthey're still productive.
Um, I didn't do, I didn't buildthe experimental design from
like the ground up.
A lot of that was, um, myadvisor, but it was kind of like
here's our core thing that weneed to do figure out how to do
it.
Um, obviously everybody's beensuper helpful, but it's it was
(03:21):
very a lot of freedom and it'skind of like playing scientist,
of like I'm not really qualifiedto do any of this stuff, so
it's like figuring out along theway is pretty cool.
Caleb Ayers (03:30):
So that's been fun and who has been your, your,
advisor this summer.
Grayson Snead (03:33):
Dr Kaylee South.
Caleb Ayers (03:34):
okay, she's great yeah, super awesome and so you
mentioned, you know, that you'reinterested in pursuing a career
in kind of immunology virology.
How are you planning to getlike?
What are, what are the nextsteps on your path to get there?
Grayson Snead (03:44):
So I'm going to Vanderbilt in the spring or the
fall.
I transferred from FurmanUniversity in Greenville, south
Carolina, and I'm working in alab there.
I just got into that lab andthey're doing rotavirus and
reovirus research, so just somestuff with that.
Not sure yet what that's goingto look like, but it's super
cool because it's just directexposure to the field.
I'll be doing undergraduateresearch, so that's great Cool.
Caleb Ayers (04:06):
You know you talked about kind of the research
process and learning a lot aboutthat this summer.
What else have been kind ofyour takeaways from this summer
internship here at IALR?
Grayson Snead (04:14):
I've done a lot of other stuff too.
We're involved in a coupleother greenhouse projects, so
not directly my projects, butwe'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 ofresearch.
It's not always the superengaging and fun thing of like
I'm doing things every day.
Sometimes I'm sitting in myoffice and just typing or just
(04:35):
reading some stuff, so justgetting to see the day-to-day of
like what realistic researchlooks like it's not
groundbreaking every day.
It's not always super fun.
And I've come in and I've donethere's days I haven't even gone
out to the greenhouse Um, I'veswept the greenhouse a lot.
We mop sometimes.
So just like it's, this is ajob and it's um, it's fun.
Overall it's ultimately superfun, but some days are a lot
(04:58):
slower than others.
So just knowing that isimportant, I think.
Caleb Ayers (05:02):
All right, some rapid-fire questions real quick.
What's your life theme song?
Grayson Snead (05:05):
Oh, I don't know.
Hold on.
Probably it's got to be acountry song.
Uncle Penn by Ricky Skaggs.
It's a bluegrass song.
Actually.
Pause cut Highway 40 Blues byRicky Skaggs, that's a good one.
Caleb Ayers (05:17):
I don't know that song.
We'll take it.
Caffeine of choice.
Grayson Snead (05:20):
Oh, coffee yeah.
Caleb Ayers (05:22):
All right, good stuff.
Thank you, thanks for beinghere.
Now we have Dilara Soltanova,who is an intern with the
Empower program here, so thanksfor being here.
So tell me a little bit aboutkind of just how you found this
internship.
Dilara Sultanova (05:33):
I found this internship through Averitt,
through my professor, and Ithought that it's a hands-on
experience through my actualcareer, which includes the
career and technology assistant.
So I think it would be a goodcombination of helping students
out with their career workforceand also including my technical,
(05:55):
real problem-solving skills.
Caleb Ayers (05:57):
What is your kind of long-term career goals?
Dilara Sultanova (06:00):
I think it's something that includes data
engineering or applied AI.
It's like solving real problemissues that would need my
technical solving skills, andalso I'm really interested in
data structuring.
(06:21):
As I said, data engineering,working with the data systems
everything that includes that.
Caleb Ayers (06:27):
Yeah, and how has your experience this summer?
How have you seen thatcontributing to those you know,
to those career goals that youhave?
Dilara Sultanova (06:36):
I think it's been really impactful since the
day one, the trust andresponsibility that was given me
and that my thoughts was valued, and also my impact throughout
the real data and impactfulprojects I've been working with,
as contributing to the EmpowerExchange and also creating a
(07:01):
calendar for young professionalsso they won't be feeling that
they will be just working ondaily 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 codethrough Python and Jupyter
Notebook so I could be useful indevelopment of workforce, I
(07:26):
would say.
Caleb Ayers (07:27):
And you mentioned a couple of those things you've
been working on the EmpowerExchange event, which I know is
coming up, or yeah, by the timethis publishes, will be about to
happen.
I know you've been helping ourteam with the creation of a new
website for the Career ChoiceExpo.
So kind of what have been someof your favorite things that
you've done so far this summer,whether that be, you know,
(07:47):
specifically a work project orjust getting to hang out around
campus or with interns oranything like that.
Dilara Sultanova (07:52):
I think the main thing I've been busy with
is creating an automated datastructured system.
That will be an automatedsystem that will extract data
from the scanned PDFs of thecareer choice expo, youth, youth
expo surveys.
(08:12):
So it will be a addedautomation and not added
manually like 4 000 surveyswould be hard to add manually.
So I would try to create anautomated system through
combining ai tools and also withthe combining ai tools with the
python code, so I would get anextracted data from the PDFs and
(08:38):
make a constructed Excelspreadsheet.
So it will be useful and alldata will be correct without any
mistakes.
And also I think that it was anhonor for me to work on the
query choice microsite.
I think it was great in orderfor me to see the structure, how
they trust me in, how to designand work on structure in the
(09:01):
point of view of the educators,students and employers.
Caleb Ayers (09:04):
I think in the past interns have had the job of
manually typing in the data fromthose surveys.
So that's cool that you justdid a job that will save future
interns from doing that job.
Anything else that you want toadd?
Dilara Sultanova (09:17):
I just want to say thank you to ALR, to all
departments that I've beenworking on, to get to know them,
for giving me opportunity totake a place in meaningful
projects to make an impact onwhat they're working on.
Caleb Ayers (09:31):
Yeah Well, thanks for being here, and now we have
some quick, rapid-fire, funquestions.
Dogs or cats.
Dilara Sultanova (09:37):
Dogs.
Caleb Ayers (09:38):
Do you listen to music or not while you work?
Dilara Sultanova (09:40):
When I'm bored .
Caleb Ayers (09:41):
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 DanielOlasoko, who's one of the
manufacturing advancementinterns here at IALR.
Thanks for being here.
So, to start, tell us a littlebit about, kind of, how you
found out about this internship.
Daniel Olasoko (09:58):
So I was searching for an internship
because I was trying to gainexperience this summer.
Then I was on LinkedIn.
I saw the posts like thepostings for the openings at the
institute, so I applied to thisone.
I saw one regarding the smarttables, but I'd done something
with them last year, so I wantedto try something else.
And I read the job description.
It talked about machinelearning using Python and a lot
(10:20):
of fun things.
So I was like, yeah, let me gofor this.
Caleb Ayers (10:23):
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 Imean, I know that there's five
of you this summer, right, sotell me a little bit about, kind
of the projects that you guyshave been working on this summer
.
Daniel Olasoko (10:36):
So we're kind of divided, but three of us work
on the same thing.
Then the other two are doingseparate things.
But the team I'm on the goal isto create a custom algorithm
that will predict the likelihoodof students from the ATDM
graduating and getting employed.
So we are using data from theATDM program, like grades,
attendance, and the first stepwe do is clean the data, then
(11:00):
doing feature engineering,trying to find features between
the data and doing visuals, withall done with Python.
So we've been coding most ofthe time.
Then at this point we'retesting our model.
So we chose a model.
We're testing it right now,then after that it should be
ready for deployment.
Caleb Ayers (11:18):
That's pretty awesome.
So what was kind of the whenyou walked in, were you given
the here's exactly how to dothis, or were you given a here's
what we want to do?
You guys figure it out.
Daniel Olasoko (11:27):
So they have the project title and the project
description, of course.
So our manager described whatwe had to do and there were
already some set tasks.
So every two weeks we havesprint planning and, like, each
person picks the task they wantto do.
So there was kind of a layoutof what we had to do, but also
within ourselves we like pickedwhat we wanted to do and how to
do it.
So there's the idea of whatwe're trying to accomplish, but
(11:49):
in some sense it's still up tous to do it how we want to do it
that's fun, that's kind of howthe real workplace works, so
that's that sounds like goodexperience for you all.
Caleb Ayers (11:57):
And what have you kind of taken away from this
internship this summer?
Daniel Olasoko (12:01):
so I've had some experience with coding, but not
this often coding like everyday.
So that's a good experience forme, because there's some things
I already knew from school I'mjust learning in my own time and
there's some things I'mlearning along the way, so I'm
learning more and growing myskill set.
Also, working with a team, soI'm working with other people
and going back and forth,communicating.
Well, that has been like askill that I would say I've
(12:25):
gotten better in.
Caleb Ayers (12:25):
And what are kind of your career goals after you
finish school?
Or I guess, yeah, what are youstudying?
What are your career goalsafter you finish school?
Daniel Olasoko (12:32):
So I'm studying computer science and I'm going
to my senior year this fall.
I plan to work in thecybersecurity field, something
in the lines of that.
So I'll get an entry-levelposition, hopefully, and grow
from there.
Caleb Ayers (12:46):
And how do you think this experience this
summer kind of helped prepareyou for your future career?
Daniel Olasoko (12:51):
As I said, I was thinking of cybersecurity, but
being exposed to this.
We're doing some data sciencetype of things, so I might also
possibly consider a career indata science.
I just never thought of itbecause I have not been exposed
to it, so this has opened myeyes to a different path in
computer science.
Caleb Ayers (13:09):
That's really cool.
What has been kind of yourfavorite parts of working here
at IALR this summer?
Daniel Olasoko (13:14):
My favorite part Working with the team.
The team I'm working with aregreat.
Like everyone is really helpful, and the projects I'm working
on is also a really interestingproject that could benefit the
ATDM.
Caleb Ayers (13:25):
All right, rapid fire, real quick.
If you could instantly masterone hobby, what would it be?
Daniel Olasoko (13:29):
Master one hobby how to fly a plane.
Caleb Ayers (13:32):
That's a good one.
Board hobby how to fly a planethat's a good one.
Board games or video games,video games.
Okay, what do you do after work?
Daniel Olasoko (13:38):
Go to the gym.
Caleb Ayers (13:40):
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 bitkind of about your I guess
career and education backgroundand how you ended up with this
internship here at IALR.
Moiz Fakhri (13:56):
I recently just finished high school and I
graduated and most of my highschool experience has been
primarily just academic focus solots of AP classes and stuff
like that and I wanted moreexperience in the real world.
So to make up for that, I waslooking for a summer internship
that would be related to whereI'm trying to be in the future.
(14:17):
So that's related to somethinglike artificial intelligence,
machine learning, computerscience, something like that
data science and I was justsearching through Google and I
landed on the website that youmade and I clicked apply and I
put in my resume and everything,and that's that's how I got
here.
Caleb Ayers (14:36):
That's a good, good success story of I think.
Most of our interns either arefrom either from the area or go
to school in the area, sothere's like some level of local
connection.
And you just straight up camefrom Georgia for this Me and one
other intern, surya, fromMichigan.
So what's?
What's that been like?
I mean like I mean youbasically, yeah, just came to a
whole new community.
Yeah, summer yeah it's.
Moiz Fakhri (14:57):
It's been a pretty crazy ride.
A lot of my family and friendsthey were like you're going
where all the way, all the wayin virginia, um, so I had to
actually it was a pretty hard toget to here and like actually
settle in and everything.
It was pretty hard to actuallyfind housing and stuff like that
.
But we eventually got itfigured out um a summer dorm at
(15:18):
avery university that worked outfor 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 getto work and back and do my
groceries and everything.
So what we did was was we wentto Walmart and we got an e-bike.
So that's how I've been goingaround everywhere.
(15:39):
So housing, transportation andthen food groceries.
My mom actually packed me somuch food like frozen meat and
stuff and burgers and stuff, soshe really helped me out on that
.
Caleb Ayers (15:54):
Good, that's a classic mom move right there in
a great way and that's overpreparing um.
So what have you been workingon in this role this summer?
Moiz Fakhri (16:02):
so for our manufacturing advancement
internship, on the three of usuh, daniel thomas and me we've
been working on this one bigproject that has so many, so
many layers to it.
So the big project overall is anongoing student success
predictor for the ATDM programthat we have here at ILR.
So what it's supposed to do istake in all the data that we
(16:26):
collect throughout the week'songoing ATDM student data, such
as grades, attendance, stufflike that and basically we're
trying to predict whether theywill graduate or not, predict
whether they'll be employed ornot, and what those predictions
do is really just help the ATDMstaff be able to intervene when
necessary when a student isstruggling.
(16:47):
So let's say, our studentpredictor predicts the student
will graduate but might not beemployed, so the ATDM staff will
go in and intervene and providecareer services or something to
help them be employed in thefuture.
So that sounds pretty simple.
But to actually get thatworking, it has so many layers
(17:09):
to it and as we continuethroughout the internship it
just gets more and more and morecomplicated and we found found
out that we're running out oftime now.
So eventually Meredith and Alexhave to pick that, pick up on
that.
Caleb Ayers (17:22):
Those are managers and so you're saying that's not
just looking at success afterlike, it's not just looking at
once they graduate, it's lookingat like during milestones,
during their yeah exactly whilethey're in the program itself.
Moiz Fakhri (17:34):
we have to predict week by week.
Basically it's a weekly thing,daily.
We could try to do a dailything, but that gets a little
complicated because you know,yeah, so mostly weekly
predictions for student successso they can intervene.
Caleb Ayers (17:50):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Yeah, what have been your kindof big takeaways?
What have you learned?
What's been, yeah, um, whathave been your kind of big
takeaways?
What?
Moiz Fakhri (17:57):
have you learned?
What's been?
Yeah, what stood out to you?
Yeah, so coming into thisinternship, I really just
thought it would be.
I asked actually emailedmeredith before I got here I was
like, okay, I got thisinternship, now how can I
prepare for it?
What should I brush up on, andstuff like that.
She told me, focus on pythoncoding most for most of the part
.
So that's what I got started ondoing and stuff, and I knew it
(18:17):
had something to do with machinelearning.
I didn't know how involved itwould be, but that's not a bad
thing at all, because that'sexactly what I was trying to do.
I was trying to land somethingthat you know is relevant to
what I'm trying to get at, andso that turned out to be really
good.
So originally, when I came herebefore I came here, actually I
emailed Meredith about askingher like, what should I prepare
(18:39):
on and how should I prepare forthis internship?
She mostly told me to focus onmy Python coding skills and
stuff like that.
So that's what I did and when Iactually got here I realized
it's actually way more than justPython coding we had to go into
like machine learning and moreadvanced concept, which is
actually a good thing, becausethat's what I wanted to do in
the end.
I learned mostly while doingthe work, so it's a lot of
(19:05):
advanced stuff like, for example, scikit-learn is a model that
we use for machine learning, andI had no experience prior
experience for that relatedthing.
So a lot of my time over herewas spent on watching YouTube
tutorials on how to do codingfor machine learning and stuff
and apply that in real time, andI had some amazing mentors like
(19:29):
Alex and Meredith to help mealong the way where I got stuck
and stuff like that, so it'sbeen a great learning experience
.
Caleb Ayers (19:35):
You just said that very well, you just learned it
while you did it.
That's basically what aninternship should be All right,
rapid fire, real quick.
Favorite YouTube channel.
Favorite.
Moiz Fakhri (19:45):
YouTube channel Veritasium.
It's a science-based YouTubechannel.
He's really great with hisvideos like 30, 40 minutes.
He goes into physics conceptsand it's really counterintuitive
.
I recommend everyone watch thatYouTube channel.
Caleb Ayers (19:58):
There you go.
What's your caffeine of choice?
Coffee, tea, energy drinks noneof the above.
Moiz Fakhri (20:03):
I recently got into Monster Monster energy drinks.
I actually got introduced tothat by Thomas here, some
all-nighters.
Caleb Ayers (20:13):
So you've been more productive this summer.
That's awesome.
Well, thanks for being here.
Some all-nighters so you'vebeen more productive this summer
.
Definitely that's awesome.
Well, thanks for being here.
We appreciate it.
Thank you All.
Right, and now we have DakotaYounger, who's a GoTech intern
here.
So thanks for being here.
So tell me a little bit kind ofabout your educational
background and how you ended uphere working with GoTech this
summer.
Dakotah Younger (20:29):
So I'm going to be going to school at Virginia
Tech for mechanical engineering.
I'm going to be going to schoolat Virginia Tech for mechanical
engineering and I'm pursuing abachelor's degree there.
But as far as how I ended uphere at the Institute, well, I
(20:53):
was looking for something to addto my resume and kind of like a
segue into the engineeringfield, and that's when I was
looking and found an opportunityto apply for the go-tech
position.
Caleb Ayers (21:00):
And tell me a little bit about kind of what
you've been doing this summer.
Dakotah Younger (21:04):
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 cameto visit in the lab and they
were affiliated with thePiedmont Regional Governor's
School.
So for the field trips we wouldset up several different little
(21:28):
activities for them, whetherthat be the Dobot mechanical
arms or the circuit breadboards,the Arduinos, and we would run
through several activities withthem.
For example, we made trafficstoplights on the Arduino boards
and then with the Dobots we hadseveral different
(21:53):
pick-and-place activities forthem to see kind of like an
example of what robotics andmanufacturing looks like in real
life.
And with the teacher trainingsthat is just kind of an array of
all the GoTech lab equipment,kind of an array of all the
(22:17):
go-tech lab equipment.
It's just kind of whatever theywant to go over.
But we've been pushing reallypushing the Haas desktop mill
because a lot of the teachersfeel like they're not as certain
, they're not as comfortablewith that right.
So we've also been working onlike kind of streamlining that
process.
We have a video out now for theteachers to watch if they need
help on it, and then also we'rekind of making like a cheat
(22:41):
sheet for them to have and justbe able to look at if they're
unsure on how to run a programor anything like that.
But we've been through thevirtual welders with the
teachers, we've been through theHaas desktop mill, we've been
through 3D printing circuitboards really anything that they
(23:02):
just feel uncertain about.
Caleb Ayers (23:03):
on the Go Tech curriculum and what were kind of
your expectations coming intothis summer and how did this
internship either how was itlike those expectations or how
was it completely different.
Dakotah Younger (23:13):
Honestly, I didn't know exactly what to
expect when I was coming here.
I had never been to theInstitute really, and I was
unsure how hands-on I was goingto be with all this stuff,
whether I was going to beworking with a lot of people
more like communications orworking on individual projects.
(23:36):
But it definitely came out tobe that the go-tech position is
definitely more about teachingand working with kids and
teachers and kind of likebuilding a relationship between
the two and being able to justprovide them with what they need
, the information that they need, and I will say it's a very
(23:59):
professional environment at theInstitute and I do get along
pretty well with that.
Caleb Ayers (24:06):
It's pretty nice.
How do you think that thisinternship kind of helped you
prepare for your future career?
Dakotah Younger (24:11):
As a whole.
It has helped me make a lot ofconnections and possible future
relationships in the field.
But just working in aprofessional environment and a
team setting is very important,I think, especially for
engineers, because you'dnormally work in work in teams
(24:32):
on designing different parts ofthings and there's different
people that specialize atdifferent things and
specifically with the GoTechteam, it's just everyone has
their own role and I thinkthat's important to get a feel
(24:52):
of.
Caleb Ayers (24:53):
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 gofishing.
If you could instantly masterone hobby, what, what would it
be?
Fishing, 100 percent.
Thanks for being here,appreciate it.
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