Brandon Lefore | Senior | Computer Science
Over the summer I interned at Dell in San Jose, CA, working with the research team to explore new technologies for a product in development. My initial responsibility on the team was to research device management. First, I explored current device management products, including Microsoft’s Intune, VMWare’s AirWatch, and the Dell proprietary device management. I compared the capabilities of the technologies to determine which would perform best with our new product. Unfortunately, none of the technologies were yet capable of what we needed, so I was assigned with building my own. Working with Dell’s device management team, I adapted an open source device management client to work on a Linux machine and connect to Dell’s server. I had a great experience working with the Dell research team. I learned a lot about new technologies and adapting them to our needs.
Alex Pollera | Senior | Business Administration and Global Politics
I spent the summer working at two different investment banks. In lieu of taking a class during spring term, I spent two weeks participating in an M&A Boot Camp at Harris Williams & Co.’s headquarters in Richmond, VA. After taking a short break at home in New Jersey, I spent most of July and August in Charlotte, NC working as a summer analyst for Deloitte Corporate Finance. Overall, this summer afforded me the opportunity to experience a potential career path firsthand and by the end of the summer, I had received multiple job offers. Coupled with W&L’s rigorous academic environment, my experiences both leading and working with others on the wrestling team are what helped me to have such a productive and successful summer. Following graduation in May 2018, I will be returning to Richmond to work full-time for Harris Williams & Co.
Matt Kaminer | Senior | Business Journalism
This summer, I worked as a reporter with The Charlotte Observer, a newspaper in Charlotte, N.C. During my 10 weeks with The Observer, I worked on the newspaper’s business desk and also covered some local and metro news. I had never been to Charlotte before this summer, but it didn’t take long to get comfortable in the Queen City. I spent my summer writing stories on finance, banking, real estate development and the local economy. As I wrote those stories, I got to talk with analysts, economists and business owners around the city, using their perspectives to inform my writing. Throughout the internship, I learned how to interview sources, turn complex financial statements into story ideas, and produce good work on tight deadlines. I enjoyed my time in Charlotte, which wouldn’t have been possible without the Donald W. Reynolds Scholarship that I received from the W&L Journalism Department to fund my internship.
He was recently featured by W&L. He also studied and took the LSAT, and his goal is to begin law school next year.
Zach Papin | Senior | Engineering
I worked for the renewable energy sector for the general contractor, McCarthy Building Co., installing a 7MW solar field outside of Richmond, Virginia. I was able to combine my engineering classwork with my passion for sustainability and it was great being outside and working with my hands every day, and especially being nearby in Virginia.
Ethan Hartman | Junior | Chemistry
A grant from The Dr. G. Ashley Allen, ’65 Student Research Grants Fund gave me the opportunity to work at Washington and Lee over the summer doing research with Dr. LaRiviere of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. I enjoyed being here at Washington and Lee over the summer doing research and really learned a lot. It was definitely a rewarding experience.
For eight weeks we worked on two research projects mainly dealing with ribosomes in yeast cells. One was the optimization of a 96 well yeast transformation protocol. This involved transforming the DNA in yeast cells using a plasmid so that the yeast would or would not express certain genes. This protocol is carried out in a 96 well plate which allows us to transform a large number of yeast strains at the same time. The other project was using a cloning technique known as gateway cloning to transform a specially designed piece of DNA from being used in a mammalian vector system to a yeast vector system. This specially designed piece of DNA will allow us to test the processivity of ribosomes. Processvity is defined as the probability of multiple catalytic rounds being performed while the enzyme is stably bounded to the substrate.
Mike Dik | Junior | Business Administration and Computer Science
Summer Research Scholar working with Dr. Sprenkle in Computer Science (for a 2nd straight summer) and also: Mike was part of the Virginia Summer Session at Oxford, a Washington and Lee sponsored, interdisciplinary summer school program based in St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. The six-week program examines the history and literature of Renaissance England.
Zach Bylykbashi | Sophomore | Business Administration
Worked at Egidio Assante Wealth Management, an investment bank near his home in Southington, CT.
Colby Boudreau | Sophomore | Undeclared
This summer I stayed at W&L and worked in an internship for one of my professors, Dick Kuettner, Director of the Global Discover Laboratories in the Center for Global Learning. My main project involved organizing the Virginia Governor’s Foreign Language Academies, an annual full immersion language-learning summer camp hosted here at W&L. Students in high school who have taken 2-3 years of either Spanish, French, or German come to the Academies for 3 weeks, and only speak and take classes in the language they are learning. IN addition, the other projects that I assisted with included organizing various language conferences for professors and preparing for the upcoming year of classes. It was a lot of fun being on campus over the summer and having the opportunity to dive into the deeper aspects of a subject with which I was not very familiar.