Knoxville, Tennessee (3/13/25) — “The students who have been involved with IACMI projects will have a ripple effect in manufacturing for decades to come.” That’s Vanderbilt University professor Doug Adams, talking about the exponential impact from IACMI’s internship program from 2016 – 2020. We agree and have a few great stories to back that up.
Brayden’s Story:
Let’s start with one of those bright minds, Brayden Aller, who first learned about an internship for IACMI—The Composites Institute® in Doug’s class. He was a freshman at Vandy when he decided to give research a shot during the summer of 2016, working at the Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability (LASIR) in Nashville. Brayden remembers working on the production of carbon fiber material and realizing how much he liked hands-on R&D work.
“Brayden was phenomenal,” says Doug, “What a hardworking, smart and capable young man. He really made the most of his internships. And his PhD is incredibly interesting work.” Yes, that summer was just the beginning of a journey for Brayden that has recently hit an exciting milestone–successfully defending his PhD at Caltech.
After his first internship, Brayden was able to secure three more during his undergrad years that were all connected to composites but that took him in different directions. In addition to LASIR, he worked for wind blade manufacturer TPI Composites and the Composite Recycling Technology Center.
“From building large scale structures to finding ways to recycle prepreg materials, I was able to transfer these skills from one job to the next,” says Brayden. “The last few years I’ve been leveraging my background in composite materials to investigate the use of fiber optic sensors for the health monitoring of thin composite spacecraft structures.”
When he says these structures are thin, he means very, very thin—less than 0.2 millimeters thick. He describes the fiber optic sensors as nerves that could potentially be used to monitor for deformation and damage in rockets or spacecraft destined for long duration spaceflight. Could his work help us one day get to Mars? Maybe! And he’s not even 30 yet. One internship can spark a path that ignites incredible potential.
Darren’s Story:
Darren Foster is another example of how one internship set him on a career path—each job compounding his skills. Darren got an IACMI internship during the summer of 2018 on an automotive project with Ford and Dow in Detroit. He was studying how dissimilar materials are impacted when they go through thermal cycling. After graduating from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) with a degree in mechanical engineering, Darren built on his automotive experience to expand into wind for TPI Composites, but he says it really wasn’t so different.
“From research associate to intern to materials test engineer to development engineer, I’ve been iterating on the same things for eight years now,” Darren says. “I’m largely characterizing composites during the manufacturing process and testing composites for their properties.”
At the 2024 IACMI Members Meeting, Darren was on a workforce panel talking about what set his internship apart. “IACMI was all hands-on learning and that proved to be incredibly valuable. When I got my first full–time job, I was able to on-board very rapidly, something that surprised my coworkers.”
Now Darren has an exciting new opportunity at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He’s working on R&D, commercial testing, and expanding DTU’s laboratory accreditation. It’s a job that would only be possible with his years in industry.
Darren shares, “What makes this a cool story is that I visited Denmark over two years ago and applied for a job here, but I didn’t have the experience required. Two years passed and with my additional skills and promotions, it was enough to land me the position. It’s been wonderful so far!”
“Darren received an offer he could not possibly refuse,” says Steve Nolet of TPI Composites. “It is REALLY good news and something we can all be proud of.”
Jessica’s Story:
Finding the right fit between industry and academia is something Jessica Lavorata knows well. Jessica’s IACMI internship in 2017 was at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado. She had never lived that far from home, but that was a big step she’s glad she took.
“Getting away from home can be intimidating but good,” says Jessica. “Being in a different environment and getting to work on the 9-meter wind blade project was a turning point for me.”
Over the next five years, knowledge gained from that research project helped increase Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) for companies that now manufacture 62-meter blades. NREL has had several follow-on R&D projects with IACMI and is now exploring automation techniques aimed at boosting wind blade production in the United States.
Jessica remembers presenting about fabricating wind turbine components at an IACMI Members Meeting. In one of the sessions, she sat next to a member who listened to her experience and asked about her interests for what’s next. He then introduced her to R. Byron Pipes and Johnathan Goodsell at Purdue University. She already had a job offer in the aerospace industry but decided to turn that down to pursue her PhD at Purdue. She found the best of both worlds in her research.
“My thesis focused on high-rate manufacturing of thermoplastic composites in an Industry 4.0 setting,” explains Jessica. “Funded by Ford Motor Company and the Department of Energy (DOE), the goal was to create a cost-effective lightweight composite structure for electric vehicles.”
After finishing her degree, she debated between going into industry or academia. She struggled with, “How do I choose to shape my future? I landed on people vs products that I could have the most influence on. Being able to teach students and get them passionate about something and see what they could do with their lives was my answer.”
Jessica is now an assistant professor of engineering at Carthage College in Wisconsin, a liberal arts college starting an engineering program. She welcomes the challenge of building a program from scratch and thinks IACMI could be invaluable to help her introduce students to a wide variety of opportunities in manufacturing.
Trent’s Story:
An industry that attracts many to composites is aerospace. That’s what drew Trent Bullman for his year-long IACMI internship from 2018 to 2019. By working with a smaller company in Knoxville, he honed a variety of skills.
“Not only did I learn more about composites, but I gained valuable insight into the daily tasks and time management of engineers in the workplace,” says Trent.
After graduation from UT, he took a job with GE Aerospace and joined a smaller cohort of engineers focused on composites. For nearly six years, he’s rotated jobs within the company every 18 months to gain a broad idea of how they’re accomplishing their mission: “future of flight.” He was also able to earn a master’s degree from one of IACMI’s core partners, the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI), while working for GE. Each time he sees new challenges, he’s grateful to have a network of experts to tap into that started with IACMI.
“That network can never be overstated,” he emphasizes. “Most people who work in the composites sphere are always willing to help. To have that network before you graduate college separates you from others coming into the industry because composites is such a niche.”
Kylie’s Story:
Not everyone who works in composites has that as a goal early on. Take Kylie Van Aken, who had a rewarding IACMI internship at Vartega in Denver, but then decided to pursue the Peace Corps. She was in Sierra Leone, West Africa, when the pandemic hit and was ordered home. That’s when she asked if she could come work at Vartega full-time and has been there ever since.
“IACMI and Vartega opened so many doors for me, allowing me to become a project leader, attend industry events, offer client-facing solutions, and present my work,” Kylie says. “I’m confident in my impact on the composites industry in a global capacity.”
As a quality manager and mechanical engineer for Vartega, Kylie performs tests to optimize the post processing of carbon fiber recycling. She’s been part of their journey from proof of concept and producing 20 kilograms a week to producing 2,000 kilograms a day. She’s even on one of their patents. One of the most meaningful areas for her has been her full-circle growth from intern to mentor.
“I first learned about composites over coffee with a mentor named Alice,” she says. “She told me about Vartega and encouraged me to apply for the IACMI internship. Fast forward a few years and now I’m having coffee with a Vartega intern named Kendall. She went on to work for a defense contractor designing rockets.” Kylie embraces the role of paying it forward.
The value of internships is so important to Vartega CEO Andrew Maxey that he continued hiring interns after IACMI’s program went on hiatus.
“IACMI helped us formalize and mature an internship program,” says Andrew. “We look for opportunities to hire interns not only during the summer but throughout the year because it gives us continuity.”
William’s Story:
Our last featured intern has been called the “poster child of IACMI interns.” Maybe that’s because William Henken has participated in IACMI since 2016 across varied roles, starting as an intern attending Summer Members Meetings, being an IACMI ambassador advocating workforce development, serving in the IACMI Future Mobility/Vehicles Technology Working Group, and now participating as an industry member on behalf of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. By chance, I was seated next to him on a flight out to Utah, so we chatted for hours and have taken selfies together at every event since. He’s a good sport about it!
Like Brayden, William took advantage of multiple IACMI internships at various locations, including Purdue’s Composites Modeling and Simulation Center and Local Motors in Knoxville, which was 3D printing a self-driving bus in 2018. Hendrik Mainka, senior project lead at Volkswagen of America, Inc., says he met William through an IACMI project and “stole him” to work in the Innovation Hub of Knoxville as a Volkswagen PhD Fellow.
William’s education and experience range from aerospace to automotive to civil engineering. The common thread is research in structural aspects of composites, and he’s grateful for how internships gave him a taste for a variety of areas early on.
“Internships are vitally important to developing the marketable skills employers are looking for,” William says. “As an IACMI intern, I was able to explore the composites industry and realize my interest in it before pursuing a career path.”
A popular model in Europe, fellowships with companies combine industrial R&D with earning higher degrees. Working at Volkswagen, William has earned a master’s and is hoping to wrap up his doctorate soon.
“I truly sought to get everything I could out of my internships, and I feel I’m a strong example of those workforce development efforts paying off,” he says.
The Ripple Effect
Though they’re meant to be short-term opportunities, internships are not designed to be one-and-done jobs. Their goal is to lay foundations of skills and contacts that will impact students, employers, and manufacturing for decades. It’s a chain reaction that’s a win-win-win. Since 2016, IACMI has placed 100 interns with industry collaboration with 100% of our interns graduating with job offers in the industry or acceptance into graduate programs. IACMI is pleased to offer more of these internships across the country, with a cost-share between DOE and members, and we’re connecting our 1.0 interns with our 2.0 interns as mentors. Businesses are clamoring for this talent, and young people are eager to work. The future of U.S. manufacturing is counting on us!
Interested in becoming or hosting an IACMI intern? Learn more here.
