Whether it’s taking on research for the first time, balancing golf practice with multiple internships, or collaborating on a major creative project, Willamette University students never seem to stand still.
Even as our campuses quieted down for the summer, Willamette students’ enthusiasm for learning and growth continued. Some traveled the world, while others stayed closer to home. Internship experiences prepared students for real-world careers, and immersive research challenged their intellectual growth.
We gathered a few of these stories of Willamette students on the move this summer. Read on for stories of students taking on thorny cybersecurity challenges, exhibiting their films in the animation capital of the Pacific Northwest, exploring the mysteries of Iceland, getting an insider view of the entertainment industry, and honing professional skills at multiple internships.
Student animated film full of spooky surprises wins at Portland film festival
A creative team of PNCA and Willamette College student animators, production designers, and composers celebrated a victory at the end of the summer when their film won the Audience Choice Award for Best Oregon Film at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology (PFCAT). It was also nominated in the category of Best Student Animated Micro-Short.
The award was the culmination of an innovative collaboration between Assistant Professor of Animated Arts Marilyn Zornado’s animation students at PNCA and Assistant Professor of Music Florent Ghys’ Music/Sound and Image course at Willamette College that brought students together across Willamette’s campuses. The result was “Next Gourd Neighbor,” a short film full of spooky surprises that follows a trio of kittens as they plot to steal their candy back from their evil neighbor.
Over two semesters, students brought their vision to life. Pre-production was completed last fall. Then, during the Spring Term Production Co-Lab class, students divided into teams to do the work of animating scenes, adding line and color, editing the film, and completing post-production.
Students gained the experience of working on a professional team in the industry. They designed merchandising, posted news on Instagram, created posters and comics based on the characters and entered the film into animation festivals.
Then, music students from Ghys’ course collaborated with the animation team, traveling between the Portland and Salem campuses to create an original musical score and sound design that elevated the final film.
At the festival in Portland, the students were able to connect with fellow animation professionals, while exhibiting their work in front of a whole new audience in the heart of the city that has been dubbed the “second Hollywood of Animation.”
“It was a pleasure and privilege working with such a talented team of people,” says director Mila Bacon BFA’27. “I feel that my leadership skills and confidence in my creative work have definitely improved thanks to this whole experience. I can't wait to direct and submit my next project to PFCAT again next year!”
The collaboration is a hallmark of the best of Willamette and PNCA’s arts education, bringing together artists, animators, composers, and sound designers from across disciplines and campuses to create something none could have made alone.
Next, the spooky film will journey north, where it has already been accepted to show at the Tacoma Film Festival just in time for Halloween in late October.
Through collaborative computer science research, students test cybersecurity systems — and themselves
Collaborative research with Willamette faculty can be a great opportunity for students to gain valuable experience applying their coursework and expanding knowledge into new fields. When Julia Martin BS/MS’28 and Lucy Dobson BS’29 heard about the chance to gain research experience as part of the Computing Research Association’s UR2PHD program, they were encouraged by Assistant Professor of Computer Science Calvin Deutschbein to apply. Designed to encourage students to pursue research careers in computer science, the UR2PHD initiative provided funding and a pre-research class, helping the students feel ready to take on the challenge.
The students’ research took on an important problem: how accidental data leakage can create security vulnerabilities in hardware components. To tackle the problem, the students had to dive deep into the literature on these systems and cybersecurity issues. They then developed code to help simplify and visualize large datasets.
The project will eventually result in a tool that will help future hardware developers make more secure systems.
“Our goal is to provide a free open-source tool to evaluate the security of data flow within a hardware system so testing can be performed before production,” Martin and Dobson say.
It wasn’t always easy, as Martin and Dobson were stepping into an unfamiliar field and were taking on serious research for the first time. They learned the importance of collaboration and of not giving up when your research hits a snag — a sense of resilience that they will bring to their courses going forward.
“Working through such a daunting project has helped us push through some of the hard classes and projects we’ve worked on at Willamette, showing there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” the team says.
Martin and Dobson hope that future students will benefit from their hard work. They encourage fellow students to take on intensive research experiences, even if they are a bit outside of their comfort zone.
“We hope that other student researchers will see our work and feel empowered to break into a field they’ve never entered before, no matter how daunting it seems,” they say.
With faculty mentorship and the support of peers, research experiences at Willamette provide fruitful opportunities for students to take on new challenges and test their limits — while making breakthroughs that will help the next generation of students and shape the future of technology.
Rachel Oh BA’27 gets an insider view of the entertainment industry at A24
What is a dream internship for a Cinema Studies major? For Rachel Oh BA’27, it was getting to work at legendary independent entertainment company A24 over the summer — an experience she won’t soon forget.
Oh had been following A24’s work for years when, on a whim, she applied for an internship there. She never expected to get the opportunity, but she soon found herself working for a company whose work she loved.
“A24 has shaped my love of cinema to be what it is today,” Oh says. “Their movies and TV shows represent the kind of creative and positive change that I would like to see in the industry overall.”
For her internship, Oh worked in the Film Development department, where she got to read and evaluate incoming scripts that were being pitched to the company — a truly exciting job for a film buff.
Just as important, Oh says, were the people she met through the internship and the professional advice she got from the connections she made in the industry. She now feels ready to finish her degree at Willamette and venture out into her next step.
“The most surprising part of the internship for me was how excited it made me to begin my career,” Oh says. “Big life changes have always scared me, but this internship really helped me to find joy in the unknown and to approach my future with excitement rather than fear.”
But before she graduates, Oh is ready to bring her experiences back to her Cinema Studies courses. Her time evaluating scripts and prospective film acquisitions helped her better understand what makes a film succeed or fail in the business.
“From this internship, I learned a lot about the inner workings of the entertainment industry and many of the technical skills that go into writing, filming, and editing your own film,” Oh says. “I will bring this knowledge into creating my capstone film this coming year.”
Interdisciplinary expedition to Iceland explores climate impacts and solutions
Located in one of the fastest-warming regions in the world, Iceland is on the bleeding edge of the climate crisis. The scale of the climate challenge and the complexity of its solutions brought an interdisciplinary group of students and faculty abroad as part of Willamette’s inaugural session of the course ENVS 282: Icelandic Environments.
The unique immersive course — one of Willamette's many study abroad opportunities — explored Iceland's past, present, and future from the perspective of the natural sciences, social sciences, and environmental humanities. A leader in climate action while experiencing disproportionate impacts of our rapidly warming world, the island nation made an ideal destination to explore climate impacts and sustainability.
Through two weeks of excursions around the country, students learned about glaciers, volcanoes, fjords and fisheries, forestry efforts, climate adaptation and resilience, swimming and bathing culture, historical writing, and folktales. They even visited a CO2 direct air capture and carbon sequestration site.
For Maya Bryant BA’26, a transfer student who will finish up classes this fall semester, the flexibility offered by the chance to study abroad over the summer rather than an entire semester was a game changer.
“As a transfer student, I never thought studying abroad would be possible for me,” Bryant says. “In the short time I was in Iceland, we explored an entire country, created new relationships with students and professors, hiked to the top of waterfalls, had lectures beside glaciers and lakes, participated in Icelandic bathing culture, explored urban sustainability and design, and so much more! I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to experience firsthand the country we were learning about.”
The students were joined by faculty who brought a variety of perspectives to the expedition. Associate Professor of Environmental Science Melinda Butterworth brought deep expertise in geography and the relationships between humans and the environment, while Associate Professor and Chair of Environmental Science Katja Meyer brought an understanding of climate science and ocean environments. Annette Hulbert, Director of the Writing Center, represented the humanities with expertise in environmental literature and travel writing.
“The trip was an interdisciplinary look at environmental issues in Iceland,” says Butterworth. “We had a great group of students from a range of majors across campus that brought their different perspectives into the conversation.”
The variety of perspectives matched the multidisciplinary nature of the climate crisis.
“It was really fun to go out into the field and challenge ourselves to visit a landscape feature, like a glacier, and think about the physical processes that shaped it, how communities around glaciers interact with them, and read poetry written about glaciers,” says Butterworth.
The trip was such a success that the faculty are already preparing for next year’s trip. Interested students can find more about the 2027 trip from the Office of International Education.
Lucas Paul BA’26, MBA’27 hones professional skills at dual internships
When it came time to find a summer internship to gain professional experience in marketing, dual-degree student Lucas Paul BA’26, MBA’27 went to Willamette’s Office of Career Development for support. With a little help from Willamette’s dedicated career advisors, Paul was able to prepare for interviews and tailor his resume for the job market.
“They helped ensure that I was giving myself the best chance to be seen when I was applying for internships,” Paul says.
The persistence paid off with not one, but two, summer internships.
As an e-commerce intern at L.A.B. Golf, Paul was able to participate in over 20 new product drops. Paul also served as a marketing and business development intern at local design and marketing agency Cascade Creatives, where he gained hands-on experience working with clients and doing client outreach.
For the award-winning member of the Willamette Men’s Golf team, the chance to work with a global golf brand was a dream come true. One highlight was getting to work on the launch of an unusual partnership with Uncrustables that ended up in a PB&J-themed golf putter. For the project, Paul was able to apply lessons from his data analytics courses in the Willamette MBA program to build consumer data dashboards, making it easy for teams across the company to access and understand the data. He built out the product pages and used data to help the company understand how limited product releases would perform in the future.
“This was an experience that showed me what is needed to have a successful brand collaboration,” Paul says.
In both internships, Paul drew on the foundational knowledge gained from the MBA’s Practical Application for Careers and Enterprises (PACE) course — an experiential learning course at the heart of the program.
“My PACE class prepared me more than I could've imagined. Having the experiences of working in teams, working with real clients, and constantly putting together presentations to present back to my professors and peers made such a big difference going into this summer,” Paul says. “The attention to detail that was stressed and the interdisciplinary requirements of the class prepared me to hit the ground running in both my internships.”
In addition to gaining valuable practical experience, the internships gave Paul a roadmap for the next steps in his career. In the meantime, he’s excited to return to campus to continue to build his marketing expertise in his MBA classes.
“Together, these two internships helped me find where in the marketing world I want to be post-MBA,” Paul says. “But I am excited to continue to work with my cohort for another year and welcome in the new cohort and show them what the Willamette MBA experience is like.”
