Spartans in the Summer
College campuses can be especially quiet during the summer, making creating content difficult. I created an outreach post to encourage current students to share what they're up to while away from the university. Some shared internships, research studies, and much more! This campaign was also a way to help prevent summer melt from incoming students who may second guess whether or not they should go to school.
Brooke Bouwens is a senior biology-chemistry major with a minor in Spanish at Manchester University. She’s been participating in a Summer Research Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research is in applied phenotyping technology with funding by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Brooke works in the Schnable Lab with a mentor who helped create her research project. She studies the heterosis of hybrid maize samples and their inbred parents. Day to day, she uses different instruments in the field and in the lab to measure the ground truths of the leaf samples and their hyperspectral measurements. Her role includes analyzing the data with Python and Microsoft Excel by comparing the hybrid and inbred traits to see if there is a correlation. Brooke has learned about the inner workings of research and gained more confidence in herself and her career plans.
“This opportunity has given me connections with peers and faculty who will support and guide me to my goals,” Brooke says.
While applying to summer programs, professors, friends, and teammates supported her through the process. Brooke plans to apply to medical school to become a dermatologist. #ManchesterUniversity #SpartansInTheSummer
Curious to see what Manchester students are up to over the summer? Our series, “Spartans in the Summer” will highlight students with summer internships or fun travel plans!
Aidan Brunkow ’23 is a double major in business management and sports management at Manchester. He is currently one of the summer 2022 business development/carrier sales interns at FitzMark Inc., a logistics firm headquartered in Indianapolis. Some of his responsibilities are
• Tracking and tracing all freight shipments to ensure on-time delivery
• Inputting tracking updates into the TMS (transportation management system
• Coordinating available carriers with customer freight
• Providing quick, effective solutions to both carriers and internal departments (business development and account managers)
“I’m excited for the experiences and skills I’ll build at FitzMark. A big thank you to my professors and peers at Manchester for the support along the way,” Aidan says.
Interested in highlighting where you’re working or traveling over the summer? Send us a direct message on Instagram @ManchesterUniversity or email us at socialmedia@manchester.edu #ManchesterUniversity
Sefunmi Babatunde is a senior at Manchester University studying biology-chemistry. She is a student researcher focusing on soybean wounding and how climate change will impact seed yield.
“I always knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I wanted to look into other aspects of my major. Dr. Beyeler referred me to Dr. Robison’s summer research program and, so far, it’s the most fun I’ve had at Manchester,” Sefunmi says. She’s especially excited to analyze her results at the end of her study, and she’s eager to present all of her hard work she’s done this summer. #ManchesterUniversity
Cole Nugent ’23 is a double major in accounting and finance. He is currently an accounting intern at Thompson Thrift’s Indianapolis location, a full-service real estate company with offices located in Texas, Arizona and Indiana. Some of Cole’s responsibilities include:
• Providing financial statement support
• Approving property invoices
• Working with other property accountants on accruals and support documents
• Bank reconciliations
• Other various one-off projects
• Pulling construction soft costs together for properties under construction
He is looking forward to learning more about the property management and real estate development industry, with an emphasis on accounting, how projects are funded, and tracking income for businesses.
“I’m so thankful for the incredible support system that helped me prepare and land this incredible opportunity, from both professors, Heather Twomey and Jen Lutz and success advisors, Leslie Marlatt and Jen Kuepper!”
#ManchesterUniversity #SpartansInTheSummer
Manchester University's Nursing Program provides excellent hands-on opportunities for traditional and ABSN students, such as providing health checks at summer camps and teaching medical safety to children. Learn more at
#ManchesterUniversity
Mikaya Auerbach ’23 is a double major in criminology and sociology. She is a Governor’s Summer Intern serving in the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) in downtown Indianapolis. At IDOC, she works in the operations division, which focuses on procedures and policies that help ensure both staff and inmate safety inside correctional facilities. Her main responsibility is to monitor phone calls made by inmates from adult and juvenile facilities across the state. She listens for policy violations and security threats that could potentially lead to compromising or dangerous situations. She’s helping with other projects, such as quality assurance assessments for the IDOC media and protective custody/ administrative housing reviews.
“My hopes for my internship have been to network as much as possible and maintain those connections, since corrections is where I want to spend my professional career. I have had many opportunities to tour prisons throughout the state and job shadow other IDOC areas like Investigations and Intelligence, the Marion County parole district, and the reentry division. Through the Governor’s Summer Intern Program, I have been able to volunteer with the White River State Park and meet key people in state government like the state auditor, Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch and of course, Governor Holcomb,” Mikaya says.
She wants to work with incarcerated individuals to help them successfully reenter society, as well as play a part in improving the rehabilitation component of corrections.
Laura Ullom-Minnich ‘23 is a double major in environmental studies and biology. She worked last summer with Dr. Short and Dr. Beyeler to study salamander microsatellites and wanted
to expand her skills by working with Dr. Robison to focus on extracting plant protein. Laura wants to work for a research institute and get her PhD.
“I’ve enjoyed this opportunity because I’m making an impact to the science community and providing more knowledge to this topic,” Laura says. #ManchesterUniversity
Shayla Welch is a senior at Manchester University. Over the summer, she worked with United Planning Organization (UPO) in Washington D.C. as a racial equity analyst. Her internship is through the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP), an agency that arranges internships for college students specifically related to poverty issues.
UPO provides assistance to low-income residents in Washington, D.C. Their services include a homeless shelter shuttle, job training, early head start, EBT processing, and more. Shayla worked as a researcher for the Resource Development team that explores emerging job fields and helps impoverished residents attain higher paying jobs. Her daily work consists processing data and using a GIS to map it, travelling to other UPO facilities to interview employees and clients and collecting information from paper files. She loved finding spaces around the city to work during her virtual days and was excited to present her research to the board of directors.
“I am so grateful for my experience and have my advisors, Katy Gray Brown and Tim Brauch to thank for my experience. Katy has pushed me to do a SHECP internship since my freshman year and I am so glad she did. Dr. Brauch helped me make sure I could fit the internship into my four-year plan and graduate on time while making the most out of my experience at MU.” #ManchesterUniversity
Diana Wilson ’23 is an environmental studies and biology double major at Manchester University. She has been working as a student researcher with Dr. Jennifer Robison. She's acting on a concern of excess nitrogen in fresh water and is researching how to naturally eliminate it without chemicals, focusing on native Indiana plants.
“What inspired me to start this research was taking a limnology lab, which focuses on the physical, biological and chemical features of different bodies of fresh water,” Diana says. She hopes to be an aquatic biologist, focusing on freshwater.
Kora Beasley ’23 is a population health major and peace studies minor at Manchester University. She is interning this summer at the Community Health Clinic, a facility in Topeka, Ind., that specializes in rare genetic conditions and provides care that is consistent with Amish and Mennonite values.
At the Community Health Clinic, Kora is gaining tons of experience and learning about public health and genetics. Most weeks, she spends a couple of days helping the research team with documents and information for their current human subject studies. She also spends time shadowing the nurse practitioner, genetic counselor and clinical geneticist in one-on-one patient-to-provider meetings. Additionally, she tackles projects for the executive director and takes time to educate herself about genetics and rare conditions.
She hopes to gain experience in the field that she wants to pursue professionally, learn about genetic care within the Amish and Mennonite communities and how to best serve the community in which she grew up. Kora is beyond grateful for this opportunity and the Servant Leader Scholarship that allowed her to pursue it!
#ManchesterUniversity #SpartansInTheSummer
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