Editor’s Note: This podcast was originally published on Spotify on July 26, 2023. 

From studying abroad, internships and labs, UT students spend their summers all over the globe. Associate Audio Editor Maria Probert Hermosillo talks to four UT students about what they’re doing for the summer. 

Reported and hosted by Maria Probert Hermosillo. Edited by Aislyn Gaddis. Music from BlueDot Sessions. Episode art by Emma George.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Welcome to People of UT, the show that introduces you to members of the UT community that have made a positive impact (big or small) on other community members. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo- For this special summer edition episode, we asked UT students to share their summer experiences. From staying in Austin, working remotely and working on cool labs and projects, these students are representative of some of the different ways longhorns spend their summers. 

Riley Church- my name is Riley Church. I’m going to be a senior at UT. I’m studying radio, television and film and plan 2 and then I have a weird little certificate in museum archive and library studies. Um, my hometown is Austin, and this is actually the first summer in college that I’ve stayed in Austin for the summer to work.

Riley Church- I think a big draw for me as someone who’s from Austin and was super familiar with UT, is all the programs they have outside of Austin. So I did my first summer and then did a study abroad in the Czech Republic with Moody and loved it. And then we had Covid and then now we’re here. And so I chose to stay in Austin because I need a few more credits to graduate. Wanted to get those knocked out. And I also found a job at Austin PBS in their archive division, which is really cool.

Maria Probert Hermosillo-Riley works with the Austin City Limits Live TV show –not the music festival– , specifically with the archive collection. 

Riley Church- Something that’s really important to most archives is that they need to be able to be researched in. People need to be able to come in and experience the knowledge because why otherwise, why are you holding on to all this stuff if people can’t see it?

Riley Church- A lot of the things that I do include, like rehousing materials, taking things out of one casing and putting it into a new, better one. That’s actually probably my favorite part because I’m getting to like, actually hold and like, touch really cool stuff. Like Willie Nelson’s microphone. Um, bass guitar signed by the Foo Fighters is what just showed up on my desk and other like huge musical acts that I some random 21 year old is getting to like handle.

Maria Probert Hermosillo-Riley is graduating soon, and is using this summer in Austin to figure out her next steps. 

Riley Church- I think like something that always surprises me, which it shouldn’t, because I’ve been here for. Like what? Like. 17, 16 years. Now, is that just like how comfortable I am in my community and like. Just like think I’m always surprised how like when I can see myself aging, if that makes sense. Like I can see myself gaining maturity and experience and like going to my like literally to 9 to 5. And that’s so weird for me to have after working like really random jobs all through high school and college and also like working on film sets and things like that that are so irregular, like having consistency like that is kind of new for me. And I think like for me, I’m surprised that I’m doing well. I’m like functioning with that.

Riley Church- you know, think a lot of people in my boat are trying to figure out what they’re going to do post grad And as someone who chose to stay here for four years after high school, I’m trying to figure out if I want to stay here for more and if I want to find. If I get that job. And if I want to find employment here, if I want to go elsewhere. And so think like this summer is a really good time for me to figure that out because I’m working and being an adult, quote unquote, and kind of like learning routine and how that functions for me and if that’s going to be the best routine for me. So I think I don’t know. I’m not making any decisions by August, but I hope that I have a better a more solid footing on where I stand in that area. And if I do want to stay here for longer.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Another student, Kat Dullen, a biology major who stayed in Austin this summer, has been doing lab work on campus. 

Katherine Dullen- My name is Kat Dullen. I go by she her pronouns. I’m originally from Houston, Texas, and I’m going to be a senior this fall of 2023. I guess just a little fun fact about myself. I’m actually a transfer student to UT. So I originally went to Lone Star Community College in Houston before coming here. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Kat works in two on-campus labs; one focused on virtual drug screening, while the other lab is for a competitive science team at UT called iGEM, focused on genetic engineering to tackle local issues. She told me about her experience with iGEM. 

Katherine Dullen- so you know how like plants get, um, can get infected with like bacterial diseases and stuff, just like humans can, but then plants also have bacteria on them. That is like good for them and it just lives on them. So kind of what we’re looking into is basically what if we could engineer the good bacteria that already lives on plants to protect them from the bad bacteria?

Katherine Dullen- I think like 14% of like something like the economy or jobs in Texas are like related to agriculture in some way. So already that’s kind of, you know, like a local angle. And then we’ve also been mainly focusing on the Texas Sweet Onion. There’s this thing called like center onion rot that can impact a lot of onions. So it basically like when the onions are growing and the bacteria gets in the onion and then when they’re stored like they can start rotting.

Katherine Dullen-  so we do our projects and, you know, hopefully, um, I guess I’m hoping and looking forward to us like kind of finishing up our project or at least getting to a good point by the end of the summer. In the fall, we get to go actually to Paris, France to present our project. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo-  Apart from her exciting summer endeavors, Kat advises students who want a similar lab opportunity at UT to search for summer housing or subleasing in Austin early … and to be aware of the level of hot weather that they are signing up for. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Kyle Morgenstein, originally from Cary, North Carolina, is a Phd student at UT who is working in Boston for Boston Dynamics this summer. 

Kyle Morgenstein- I’m a PhD student in robotics, and so I work on the intersection between social robotics and human robot interaction. I specifically think about how the algorithmic choices that we make, how we design the algorithms that power our robots, leads to social outcomes and how that leads to feelings of comfort or safety or discomfort and unsafety, and how we as engineers and designers can build systems that people want to interact with and make their lives better.

Kyle Morgenstein- Most of my job looks like coding, but my favorite part of the job is that we have lots of robots here of sort of every shape and size you can imagine robot arms, robot dogs, working on trying to get some humanoids. And so I work on writing code to make the robots do various different things. Right now, I’m working on a project to get the robots walking in crowds of people, specifically learning how to interact safely with people in very crowded environments where humans might bump and rub past each other in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody else, but is sort of required by these really crowded environments. And so we’re trying to teach robots how to learn these same sorts of social intuition for what types of contacts are okay, are any contacts. Okay? These are sort of the broad questions that we ask. And so I get to read a lot of code, test it on the robots, interact with them, sort of deploy them around people, and then try and understand how people feel about the robot and what the robot is and isn’t able to do in these environments.

Kyle Morgenstein- Something that’s really great is that we have people here with all sorts of different backgrounds electrical engineers and mechanical engineers and computer scientists and mechanics and electricians and etcetera. And all of these people have very different skill sets and backgrounds and expertise. And there’s a problem that to me may seem unachievable or unsolvable. I have no idea how to even start. But to the person sitting next to me, oh yeah, that’s really easy. They know how to do it like the back of their hand.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Kyle also studied undergrad in Boston. 

Kyle Morgenstein- I’m really excited to be in Boston because a lot of my family is from Boston, so I’ve had a lot of opportunities to see my cousins and aunts and uncles and my grandmother who’s getting a little bit older. And so I’ve been able to help see her on weekends, which has been really lovely.

Zhuoli Xie- I’m Zhuoli I am a rising computer science sophomore. I am a native of Guangzhou, China, but as of this summer I am staying with my parents at a home in the Dallas Fort Worth area. This summer I am working at the Home Depot as a software engineering intern.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Zhuoli has also taken time this summer to attend different professional development conferences. Recently, he took part in the Student Advisory Committee for the Common App. 

Zhuoli Xie- those meetings we would be. So to say, in conversations with current Common App staff, we would be critiquing advising on different design choices made by actual full time employees of Common App. We would also examine the sort of materials not necessarily directly controlled by Common App that students would see at some point during the application process, such as different types of financial aid offers, which, as you might know, is notoriously confusing at times.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Zhuoli shared that staying engaged on a completely remote job has been difficult, but that he has really enjoyed the different in-person experiences he has attended. 

Zhuoli Xie- I guess I do look forward to a trip to New York come August, which is, I have to admit, is still hosted by a yet another organization for professional development purposes. But since that’s the first time I’ll ever be in New York, I am looking forward to it.

Zhuoli Xie- opportunities and resources like these are really, really invaluable. In my particular backgrounds context, because as a first generation college student, a migrant, I am often lacking in knowledge in what many others would have just presumed as common sense. So this sort of engagement is especially important to me, which is why I have gone out of my way to just basically spam application to anything that even remotely resembles engagement opportunity with people or travel opportunity to places, because I recognize that I’m bounded by my vision. So being resourceful is my way to expanding that vision so that I know what I have the choice of.

Maria Probert Hermosillo- This has been a production of the Daily Texan Audio Department. Reported by me, Maria Probert Hermosillo, and edited by Aislyn Gaddis. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Special thanks to Riley Church, Katherine Dullen, Kyle Morgenstein and Zhuoli Xie for participating in this episode. Also, thank you to blue dot sessions for music. 

Maria Probert Hermosillo- Thank you for listening.