Intern of the Year Award Winners

2025 Outstanding Co-Op/Intern of the Year Award Winners

I’ve always been drawn to creativity and curiosity. From redesigning spaces as a kid to exploring different perspectives through travel, I’ve been fascinated by how people think and connect. While studying nursing at Bradley University, I realized my favorite part of healthcare wasn’t clinical care itself, but understanding people’s needs and experiences. That realization led me to UX design, a field that combined creativity, empathy, and problem-solving in a way that felt natural to me.

After taking my first UX class, everything clicked. I discovered a passion for stepping into users’ shoes, finding friction points, and designing solutions that make their lives easier. To deepen my understanding of people and communities, I added a Health Science minor and began exploring how UX could make healthcare more accessible and human-centered.

That goal guided me to an internship with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Although the position was originally listed under marketing, I approached it through a UX lens, analyzing healthcare websites to identify usability gaps and opportunities for clearer communication. My initiative earned me the internship and set the stage for meaningful, hands-on design work. Early on, my manager asked what I hoped to gain. I said I wanted to make an impact and was trusted with designing a new platform to simplify how health plans prepare Requests for Proposals for Medicaid procurements. The concept was only an idea at first, with no structure or content. As the only UX-focused contributor, I navigated uncertainty, collaborated with technical teams, and advocated for user-centered design. I created wireframes, facilitated discussions, and helped shape the product from the ground up.

By the end of the internship, I saw even more opportunities to improve the tool and proposed continuing the project. That initiative led to an extended contingent role, allowing me to keep developing the platform while finishing my degree.

That experience taught me something I’ll carry forward: trust creates growth. When people are given space to experiment, learn, and lead, they rise to the challenge. My journey confirmed that meaningful impact doesn’t come from knowing everything; it comes from curiosity, creativity, and the courage to build anyway.

Growing up in Missouri, noticing discrimination was incredibly easy. There are several injustices in our world, and that became clear to me when Michael Brown Jr. was murdered in Ferguson, MO. From that point on, I have made it my mission to be a voice for those who are not allowed to speak for themselves. From this passion, I determined that sociology might be the best major for me. I was exactly right. After learning about the major injustices in the U.S. criminal system, I decided to add criminology as a second major. With the combination of sociology and criminology, I feel incredibly ready and capable of changing the world.

After many classes with my excellent professors, Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Williams, I figured out that the best way to achieve my dreams is to pursue a legal career. In one of Dr. Cunningham’s classes, she invited the Innocence Project to come and speak to us students. In that zoom, there was a retired attorney working to help exonerate wrongfully convicted criminals. Her occupation, her passion, her drive thrusted me forward into knowing I need to be a lawyer.

In the summer of 2025, I was granted the privilege to intern under a Criminal Defense Attorney. Under my attorney, Tim Lohmar, I was able to witness courtroom proceedings, gain a better understanding of Judge’s rulings, grasp how attorneys manage casework, learn the behind the scenes from legal clerks, and find out my true calling. Interning not only added fuel to my fire but also helped me become confident in myself and my intelligence. This internship allowed me to study for the LSAT with confidence, allowed me to pass and get into a fantastic law school, and helped show me that I am capable. Without this internship, I would not have the skills I needed to be a law student.

Throughout my undergraduate nursing education at Bradley University, I have intentionally sought out experiences that would strengthen my understanding of patient care and prepare me for my future role as a registered nurse. I have had the privilege of taking a nursing course abroad in Ireland and Scotland, serving on the Bradley Nursing Student Association Executive board for three years and as president my senior year, getting to be a tutor/mentor for younger nursing students on campus, and getting to volunteer with different health care organizations in the Peoria area. My interest in healthcare began in high school when I became a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and worked at a nursing home in my hometown. I continued working there during college breaks, which allowed me to build strong foundational skills in direct patient care. This early experience shaped my passion for compassionate, patient-centered care and confirmed my desire to pursue nursing as a career.

This past year, I had the opportunity to complete my internship at Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital on the Intermediate Surgical Care Unit, where I gained hands-on experience in an acute care setting working with post operative patients and intensive care unit (ICU) step down patients. In this role, I was able to participate in many essential nursing responsibilities, including administering medications, performing patient assessments, documenting in the electronic health record, and collaborating with nurses and interdisciplinary team members. I made it a priority to actively seek out new learning opportunities. Through this experience, I learned not only the clinical aspects of nursing care, but also the importance of teamwork, adaptability, and effective communication in a fast-paced hospital environment.

My internship significantly increased my confidence and allowed me to apply the knowledge I gained in the classroom and simulation labs to real-world patient care. Over time, I became more comfortable managing responsibilities, thinking critically, and contributing to the healthcare team. This experience also helped me discover my strengths in empathy, communication, and resilience, especially when caring for patients in stressful or unfamiliar situations. Overall, my experiences as a nursing intern have prepared me to enter the nursing profession as a confident, compassionate, and hardworking new graduate nurse.

During the summer, there is nothing like watching a jobsite transform week by week and realizing you helped document that story. My internship with Gilbane Building Company on the Bally’s Chicago Casino project in Chicago gave me that experience and showed me what it takes to bring a large-scale project to life.

Bally’s Chicago is being built by the Chicago Community Builders Collective (CCBC), the general contractor for the project. CCBC is a joint venture between Brown & Momen Inc., d’Escoto Inc., Milhouse, Powers & Sons Construction, SQN Associations, Ujamaa Construction Inc., Riteway-Huggins Construction Inc., and Gilbane Building Company. Working in a joint venture environment helped me understand how multiple companies and teams coordinate, communicate, and stay aligned to keep a major project moving forward.

I supported the Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) team, and this internship introduced me to VDC as a career path and what it really does on a large job. I learned how VDC connects design and engineering information to construction planning through tools like 3D models, coordination workflows, and field documentation. The most exciting part was seeing how office coordination directly impacts what happens in the field, what we reviewed and tracked on a screen could be walked, measured, and verified on site.

To understand the project from every angle, I participated in field walks with professionals in different roles, including field engineers, superintendents, and the safety manager. Those walks helped me learn how decisions are made in real time, how schedules and logistics affect construction sequencing, and how safety is built into every part of the day. Seeing the jobsite through each person’s perspective helped me better understand how the engineering side ties into construction, from interpreting plans to making sure the work matches the intended design.

In addition to supporting coordination work, I helped create the weekly drone flight videos used to document and communicate progress. I am especially proud that I helped create the timelapse for the Bally’s Chicago Casino Year in Review 2025 video, capturing a full year of progress into one video and showcasing how much the site transformed over time.

Overall, this internship strengthened my communication and teamwork skills, improved my confidence in professional settings, and expanded my understanding of how civil engineering, construction management, and technology come together on a major project. It confirmed my excitement to continue building my future in civil engineering and construction through hands-on experiences.

In the summer of 2025, I had the privilege of being a Business Operations Intern at Kirby Risk in Peoria, IL. The company, founded in Indiana, is part of the electrical distribution industry and is well known for its customer-first mentality. At the beginning of my internship, my supervisor and I established certain goals for me to achieve throughout the program. These goals were primarily focused on my professional growth and learning how the company functions from top to bottom.

To achieve these goals, I was given hands-on tasks that allowed me to contribute to the company’s daily operations. Specifically, my job included placing customer orders, conducting inventory counts, shipping/receiving orders, and handling other day-to-day operations. All of these tasks are reflected in the Peoria branch, which, in turn, translates into Kirby Risk’s overall organizational success. In addition to these tasks, my district manager assigned me an inventory management project. The goal of this project was to determine if our current inventory levels aligned with our branch’s demand. By examining our stock, I was able to understand how the company functions and what products we offer our customers. In addition, I was able to apply formulas and concepts learned in class, which was pretty cool. In the end, I identified many cost-saving options for the company and had the opportunity to present those findings during my final presentation in Indianapolis.

As an intern at Kirby Risk, I learned far more than I could have ever imagined. My time at Kirby Risk allowed me to apply my studies at Bradley to real-life applications and learn how a business operates. The greatest takeaway from this internship was realizing my strengths and weaknesses. My role at Kirby Risk was my first job related to my major, and it truly opened my eyes to what skills I lack. By putting myself in new situations throughout the summer, I was able to test my skills and identify areas I can improve.

Overall, I have nothing but nice things to say about Kirby Risk and the people within the organization. Kirby Risk’s culture is the one thing that I will never forget about this experience, and I appreciate them welcoming me to their team. In addition, I would like to thank the Smith Career Center for all the work they do. They truly are the reason many students, just like myself, can pursue these opportunities.