For many Valpo student-athletes, the summer months provided an opportunity to complete internships in their fields of choice.
 
Internships bridge the gap between the learning that takes place in Valparaiso University classrooms each day and the daily workplace reality. Many of these internships help our student-athletes develop a direct path to employment while building their resumes, receiving career-based mentorship and growing their skills. Student-athletes represent Valpo at wide-ranging internships across the country. Those who completed internships this summer found time to train, work out and prepare for their seasons while also fully immersing themselves in these opportunities.
 
A few of the many student-athlete internships from Summer 2026 are highlighted below. If there are Valpo student-athlete internships missing from the list that should be highlighted, please email the details to Brandon.Vickrey@valpo.edu.
 
Evan Curran, Men's Swimming, ME Engineers
Evan Curran of men's swimming was a mechanical engineering intern at ME Engineers in Denver. He designed and coordinated mechanical systems that made large buildings, stadiums, arenas and other facilities function efficiently and comfortably. His responsibilities included HVAC design, heating and cooling-load calculations, ductwork and piping design.


 
Orly Berry, Women's Swimming, Oak Ridge National Lab
Orly Berry of women's swimming was an intern in the health services division at Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn. She worked in the occupational clinic, where they shadowed the doctors and worked with patients on site.


 
Eve Miller, Soccer, WKBN TV
Eve Miller of soccer interned in the weather center under the chief meteorologist at WKBN in Youngstown, Ohio. She made weather graphics, was on podcasts and worked on the green screen. She also shadowed other jobs, getting the opportunity to see how a producer and director work live newscasts, plus how the news anchors prep for the shows.
 


Mara Thomas, Volleyball, American Volleyball Coaches Association
Mara Thomas of volleyball interned for the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA), collaborating on projects to help market the AVCA First Serve in Milwaukee, the AVCA Convention in San Antonio and polls/All-American archives for all college volleyball divisions.
 


Brendan Mcilvenna, Football, Elevance Health
Brendan Mcilvenna of football interned with Elevance Health in Indianapolis on the Commercial Finance/FP&A team. He worked on financial analysis and month-end reporting and built a variance analysis tool to help the team better understand changes in premiums and administrative fees.
 
Brianna Keese, Women's Swimming, Sanlo Central Wire
Brianna Keese of swimming was an engineering intern at Sanlo Central Wire in Michigan City, Ind., helping repair and set up new automation processes and machines such as a TSUNE saw and Rhobi Saw. She also maximized efficiency and work flow for new production, using Sanlo system to track parts and start orders. She got to be involved as an engineer, watching the thought process and skills of the others who have been at it for 20+ years. Sanlo produces and ships wire products across North America for commercial and custom buyers, for items like winches and cable connections.


 
Olivia Tressler, Women's Swimming, Return to Play Physical Therapy
Olivia Tressler of swimming was a physical therapy tech at Return to Play Physical Therapy in Las Vegas, working directly with patients and the physical therapist. She gave and supervised exercises, sat in on initial evaluations and gave supervised treatments like heat and stim.
 


Sophie Schoch, Women's Swimming, Medtronic
Sophie Schoch of swimming was a research and development engineering intern at Medtronic in Fort Worth, Texas. Her duties included designing and improving products that are used to treat hydrocephalus.
 
Faith Bargwell, Women's Swimming, Pine Rest Mental Health Services
Faith Bargwell of swimming was a psychometry intern at Pine Rest Mental Health Services in Grand Rapids, Mich. She assisted with the administration, scoring and documentation of psychological and cognitive assessments under supervision. She gained experience preparing testing materials, following standardized procedures, maintaining accurate records and supporting psychologists with assessment-related tasks. She developed skills in attention to detail, confidentiality, communication and professional documentation. She worked closely with doctors and patients.

William Schenk, Men's Swimming, Bank of Oklahoma
William Schenk of swimming was a Wealth Management Intern in the Alternative Investments division through BOK Financial's ACT Program at the Bank of Oklahoma in Tulsa. He participated in business development meetings with general partners across the energy, real estate and technology sectors, conducted investment due diligence, financial analysis and market research to evaluate potential investments and presented new opportunities to the Investment Committee, receiving approval for Limited Partner platform commitments. Schenk completed the internship on-site from May 2026 to August 2026. He earned first place among all intern teams for a summer-long capstone project that identified an underutilized vendor subscription and significant annual cost-saving opportunities. He received a return offer to continue with the Alternative Investments team.
 
Adam Anderegg, Men's Swimming, Blackbird Acupuncture
Adam Anderegg of men's swimming observed and learned the art of Chinese medicine and how it complements Western styles at Blackbird Acupuncture in Rice Lake, Wis. The internship provided a unique experience that allowed him to compare and contrast Chinese and Western medicine and how it contributes to holistic healthcare and the betterment of patient outcomes.
 
Avery Berryman, Men's Swimming, Ford Meter Box
Avery Berryman of men's swimming was an environmental engineer at Ford Meter Box in Wabash, Ind.
 


Julianna DeSimone, Soccer, Walsh Construction
Julianna DeSimone of soccer was a project engineer intern at Walsh Construction, her second year with the company. She worked on the UPPR/I490 Railroad Bridge in Franklin Park, Ill. It involved the construction of a new Union Pacific Railroad bridge over the Canadian Pacific Railway Yard. She supported field and office operations by attending cost and operations meetings, coordinating schedules, tracking quantities and assisting with construction management. She also sight-saw two different projects (with same company) at O'Hare Airport. One project was installing hydronic piping and the other was digging/filling a basin to help build a foundation for taxiways.
 
Emma Paraskos, Soccer, AbbVie
Emma Paraskos of soccer interned with AbbVie in the Biologics Analytical Research and Development (Bio ARD) department. Her main project focused on testing different AbbVie-developed cancer treatment drugs using the Maurice CE-SDS Plus system and comparing the results to previous data collected using the PA800 system. She prepared and tested both reduced and non-reduced samples, analyzed and integrated the resulting graphs and compared things like overall resolution, peak separation, purity and different types of high- and low-molecular-weight impurities. She also reran samples to see if the results were reproducible and consistently met the criteria for a successful method. After the initial testing, she worked on optimizing the method by changing different conditions, including sample concentration, injection time and voltage to see if those adjustments could improve the quality of the data and help separate impurities more clearly. She tested concentrations ranging from 10% to 120% of the target concentration and compared how each condition affected the results. The overall goal of the project was to help determine whether the Maurice system could provide better and more reliable analysis than the PA800 system. This type of testing is important because understanding and measuring impurities helps researchers evaluate the quality of a drug and better understand how it may behave in the body.


 
Maia Struble, Bowling, Cook Inlet Tribal Council 
Maia Struble of bowling was the Communications Intern at Cook Inlet Tribal Council in Anchorage, Alaska. She spent most of her summer creating graphics for social media, monitoring social platforms and communicating with tribal partners across different organizations about upcoming events for participants of the organization. She also spent the summer working with other interns to learn the organization's core competencies and how those apply to traditional native ways of life and learning more about her own culture as an Alaska Native young adult.
 
Adam Melliere, Men's Golf, Old National Bank
Adam Melliere of men's golf was a corporate banking intern at Old National Bank in Indianapolis.

Tyler Buchman, Baseball, Commercial Capital
Tyler Buchman of baseball spent the summer at Commercial Capital in Kansas City. For a month, he worked in all their departments (sales, accounting, crediting, customer services, etc.), and then for the last month was able to focus on the accounting side and mainly focused on looking at their bank statements and doing bank reconciliations in an accounting platform called Sage. He continues to do that work now, working remotely from 8 a.m. to noon every day, while getting his MBA and playing his final year of college baseball.
 
Nick Baffa, Baseball, Evanston Township Baseball Volunteer
Nick Baffa of baseball worked at Evanston Township High School as a baseball volunteer, working with the varsity team. He said it was amazing being able to share what he's learned with the team and help out some players with mentality, a structure and enjoying the game. Then, he was a level-up baseball instructor, teaching kids from ages 7-18. He said it was great learning how to work with every group age of kids and have a passion every day for what he was doing.
 


Austin Lambert, Football, Surge Staffing
Austin Lambert of football worked as a data analytics intern at Surge Staffing, building statistical models and Power BI reports that helped leadership evaluate branch performance, forecast revenue and decide where to expand next.


 
Micah Mackay, Football, Naval Surface Warfare Center
Micah Mackay of football worked as a systems engineering intern at Naval Surface Warfare Center in the Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) Strategic and Computing Systems Department. He worked with various departments on the development of a weapons system, mainly learning about how systems engineers provide the requirements and inputs/outputs of a system and how they interact with the rest of the team. Tasks included weekly meetings about progress and recent developments, training courses, as well as analyzing specific documents. Team meetings involved important decisions, discussions and learning experiences. The goal was to learn and observe.