Daniel's Internships Took Him From Battery Research To Manufacturing
Daniel Cudzich is at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Daniel Cudzich is a Goldwater Scholar studying Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
Daniel was fortunate to have been in a high school where there was a class dedicated to doing research.
It was here that Daniel cut his teeth in research, and got his hands dirty working on Battery technology.
He continued Battery Research at UIUC.
1.Research at Argonne National Lab
Daniel spent the summer after his Freshman year at Argonne National Laboratory.
Daniel received the guidance that as a freshman, getting internships maybe hard.
Companies are looking for interns that can become full time employees.
And if you are a freshman, three years is a long time and no guarantee that you’d keep returning as an intern, let alone return as a full time employee!
Research is a much better option.
So Daniel applied to several programs at National Laboratories and Research Universities.
Daniel’s knowledge of simulation and finite element analysis using ANSYS helped get the position at Argonne Lab;
It was fully virtual because of COVID;
But he still was able to do a lot of pretty cool computation stuff.
It was a lot of learning and making mistakes. That’s what internships are for.
2.Sophomore Internship - Panasonic
Daniel sent out over 100 separate internship applications for the summer after the sophomore year.
He got a positive response from Panasonic.
To be fair, he did get a response from John Deere as well, but that was after he had already accepted the Panasonic offer.
Panasonic was his first introduction into large scale battery manufacturing.
Getting a Battery working in the laboratory, while an incredible achievement, is one thing;
But then it needs to be mass produced - so that these batteries to put them into all kinds of products, like phones, tablets, electric cars, etc.;
So learning what the factory process is crucial,
Learning the current mechanical processes, as well as
The mechanical assembly of those batteries.
The Panasonic internship allowed him to diversify outside of the Chemical space and more into the Mechanical Engineering and the Quality Engineering side of things.
3.Junior Internship - Apple
Then in the Fall semester of his junior year, he got an an email from his Principal Investigator (PI) in the Lab.
It said that Apple was looking for a Graduate student, who knew simulations and batteries
Daniel was not a Grad student;
But he did know simulation and batteries;
So he ended up replying.
Several conversations later, Apple was ready to take him on.
He landed a battery manufacturing, design engineering internship at Apple!
4.Learnings
Daniel won the Goldwater Scholarship for Research in his Junior year.
He believes that in addition to his Battery research at UIUC, the Panasonic internship was a contributing factor in winning the Goldwater Scholarship,
Adding to his research talents & skills, he learned a lot of valuable technical skills at Panasonic involving large scale of manufacturing,
Finally, he now knows what it really takes to take an advanced technology in the lab to bring it up to scale in a giga factory - like the ones you might find at Tesla.
5.On with the Podcast
On my Podcast, Daniel shares his undergraduate college journey at UIUC, Battery Research, Winning the Goldwater Scholarship, Summer Internships, and Advice for High Schoolers.
Listen to the Podcast with Daniel Cudzich of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. (53-Minute Listen).
Hope you find the stories and articles in the Newsletter inspiring and helpful. Please give me feedback or leave a comment to let me how I am doing.
Thanks.
Finally, my heartfelt Thanks to all my Podcast guests who have been generous with their time and counsel on my Podcast.
Have a wonderful week!
Venkat