Summer Showcase 2026

SayKid is a company that is trying to help kids learn without screens. Technology has a big negative impact on kids and SayKid is trying to dress that. During my internship I worked on recreating and creating voice games for kids to play that pushes them to use one of the main things that help kids learn, their imagination.

Student Role: Game Developer Intern

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

In this project, I studied how social inequality changes the way people learn from rewards. Using a reward-learning task, computational models, and brain scans, I found that seeing someone else receive more or less can change how strongly people learn from their own outcomes. The way people perceive others also shapes this learning. These effects were reflected in specific brain regions involved in reward processing, showing that learning depends not only on what we receive, but also on the social context around us.

Student Role: Undergraduate Researcher

Project funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with the Payne-Phalen Community Council as their Community Engagement Organizer Intern. My primary project was the help PPCC further develop their District Plan, which is a document that outlines Payne-Phalen's goals and policies regarding topics like transportation, housing, heritage and cultural preservation, and more. My tasks this summer involved heavy researching and data organizing. I also helped execute community events relating to other projects, such as PPCC's project to expand Evie Carshare access on Saint Paul's East Side.

Student Role: Community Engagement Organizer Intern

Project funded by: Macalester faculty/staff grant funding

This summer, Ismail interned at a public agency in Cairo that helps prevent and resolve conflicts across Africa. He worked on understanding what causes wars and instability in different countries, particularly Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and helped design programs meant to address those root causes. Ismail also updated the agency's mediation training manual, met with directors of various governmental peace and security units, and assisted with planning the Presidential Aswan Peace Forum. The experience connected his International Studies at Macalester and his previous experience at the African Leadership Academy to real, on-ground work in African diplomacy and peacebuilding.

Student Role: Peacemaking & Mediation Intern

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

Localization is the ability of a robot to determine where it is relative to a known environment. Our robots determine this by processing inputs from their sensors: wheel movement, depth sensors, and RGB cameras. Prof. Susan Fox’s Robotics Lab focuses on creating a machine learning model which processes, analyzes and categorizes colored images into specified locations around Olin Rice accurately. This summer, our research revolved around improving the accuracy of our previous models by updating software, changing training methods, and trying new types of architectures, including transformers, the architecture which gave rise to chatbots like ChatGPT.

Student Role: Research Assistant

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

Mauna Loa is the world's largest volcano. It is located on the big island of Hawai'i and is currently an active volcano. With an estimation of about 75000 km^2, Mauna Loa makes up about 50% of the Big Island. This study will focus on eruptions from 1919 and 1926. These two eruptions were some of the eruptions in which lava flow reached nearby communities and even blocked what is known today as Highway 11. We will conduct petrologic studies to understand this eruption.

Student Role: Student Researcher

Project funded by: Macalester faculty/staff grant funding

My summer research in the Witus Lab is about two topics. One, the protection of shielding polymers on therapeutic proteins. And two, the catalytic activity of hormonal peptides on reactions in the human body. For the first topic, the protection of shielding polymers were tested on proteins via proteolytic resistance at different time points. The digestion of the protein was measured to see how well the polymers protected the therapeutic protein. For the second topic, hormonal peptides were added to reactions that would occur in the human body to see if the reactions were catalyzed.

Student Role: Researcher

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

During my internship at Accentuate Strategy + Execution, I worked on using AI, automation, and software tools to improve everyday business tasks and make the business workflows easier. I built systems that could find relevant events and business opportunities, organize and categorize contact information, and reduce repetitive manual work. I also helped migrate the company’s website from Squarespace to WordPress and worked with tools such as Python, APIs, Google Apps Script, and AI models. The experience showed me how technology can be used to solve practical problems and make daily tasks more efficient.

Student Role: AI and Automation Engineer

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

As a sportswriting intern, I wrote daily stories covering each of those beats (except for out-of-season hockey). I attended Twins games, Lynx games and Vikings training camp and wrote gamers and longer features. My favorite pieces included a story about the Saints’ Ball Pig, a story about Cheryl Reeve becoming the winningest WNBA coach, and a story about a Gopher’s hockey player being drafted to the PWHL. I also got to meet No. 1 globally ranked golfer Scotte Scheffler. As an aspiring journalist, it was great to get professional experience and develop a portfolio of published pieces.

Student Role: Sportswriting Intern

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

Demystify.org provides an educational platform to help speakers of low-resource languages navigate the U.S. tax system.

Student Role: Founder

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

This summer I worked as a costume design assistant on a production of Hadestown that had an all teen cast! My job was to help the costume designer, Lily Turner ('24) execute her vision at Children's Theater Company.

Student Role: Costume Design Assistant

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

TDA Cycle Explorer is an interactive web app that helps you discover hidden loops and rings in tangled webs of data. Click any point on the chart to see the exact circle of connections that created it.

Student Role: Research Assistant and Website developer

Project funded by: Macalester faculty/staff grant funding

This project is an on the ground examination of language written and heard around Twin Cities Russian-speaking establishments. It examines what effect the war in Ukraine has had in language use: do establishments still call themselves Russian, do they make their support known, do they use Soviet imagery, who is their intended audience, how have demographics changed, etc. It compares restaurants and stores that market themselves to the in group and the out group. It compares how the storefronts looked before and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Student Role: Researcher

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

This summer, I interned with Gobo, a local startup making live events easier and fairer for small to midsize music and performing arts venues. Gobo’s end-to-end software handles everything in one place—from booking artists and managing your calendar to selling tickets and paying performers. Gobo proudly charges zero ticket fees to fans, making live shows much more accessible and transparent. During my internship, I helped build custom features for our new Pro app tailored directly to client needs.

Student Role: Development Intern

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

Summer 2025, I co-created a community garden with HandsonHarvests in my childhood neighborhood to protect residents’ access to fresh produce. Annandale is home to Black and Hispanic immigrant families many of which rely on government assistance. My goal is to increase the tools residents can use to combat the rising grocery inflation rate, the closing of many food banks, and the defunding of welfare programs. As public health infrastructure crumbles, people must be able to protect their health through preventative measures such as diversified, fresh diets.

Student Role: Community Garden Organizer

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

I had the opportunity to work with and learn from the props shop at Childrens' Theatre Company in Minneapolis. I served as the properties designer for their summer production of Hadestown: Teen Edition and was responsible for sourcing, building, and painting all the props and furniture used, under the mentorship of the props team there.

Student Role: TAT Props Intern

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

Changes in speech are some of the earliest manifestations of neurological disorders. Speech analysis is a quick, non-invasive way to screen patients for these conditions. Previous studies have demonstrated the capability of statistical algorithms to discern between people with Parkinson's Disease (PD) from healthy controls, ataxia from controls, and HE (a complication of severe liver disease) from controls. My research focused on identifying unique speech signatures of these three neurological disorders (PD, ataxia, HE) with the goal of accurately distinguishing between each condition.

Student Role: Research Fellow

Project funded by: The company/institution/organization you worked at

Solving ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is important for modeling real-life scenarios and applying them to fields such as biology, economics, and engineering. An ODE describes the rate of change of a phenomenon, and solving them allows us to predict this change. This summer, we worked on creating our 5-stage "PPP Algorithm", standing for "Picard, Prune, and Polish", an iterative method to produce the solution in the form of a barycentric rational function.

Student Role: Researcher

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)

During my SCORE internship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Carbone Cancer Center, I worked with the Ngo Lab to optimize models for brain metastases, which occur when cancer spreads to the brain. Traditional models use tumor spheroids, which are groups of cancer cells grown together; however, some cancer cells do not form spheroids well. My research focuses on an alternative model using microcarrier beads, which are tiny beads that allow cancer cells to grow and attach to their surface. I optimized these microcarrier spheroid models using metastatic breast cancer cells to study how tumors invade surrounding tissue.

Student Role: Researcher

Project funded by: American Cancer Society

This project provided me with an opportunity to learn Dorico, a notation software, as well as learn how to create front covers as well as properly format scores to be legible and easily useable by musicians. I transcribed Prof. Malawey's handwritten works into digital form, then reformatted, revised, and created front covers and finalized the scores.

Student Role: Researcher

Project funded by: Macalester College (e.g., endowed funds)