Internships at Promega aren’t about getting coffee for your boss or shredding thousands of old papers. Promega interns take responsibility for complex projects that create notable impacts for their teams, our customers, or Promega as a whole.
Promega hosted 56 interns over the summer in 2024. These students came with unique skills in science, engineering, marketing, IT and so much more. We asked several of them to write about the work they did, as well as the results and benefits they created.
Madison Vasatko – Operations Continuous Improvement Intern
This summer, I had the opportunity to work as an Operations Continuous Improvement Intern at Promega. My time was split evenly between two groups: kit packaging and facilities planning. For each area, I tackled several projects.
For the kit packaging group, I organized continuous improvement ideation sessions with technicians to pinpoint waste and inefficiencies in kit packaging processes. As a result, I was able to identify 8 quick wins, or simple changes that lead to large benefits. Some of these quick wins include improving communication and access to resources through updates to the kit packaging Teams channel, increasing the utilization of laptops through the change from desktops to docking stations, and analyzing cap colors for various kits to minimize error in verifying components.
Regarding the facilities planning team, I continued the work started by last summer’s intern on cleanup of facilities spare parts. This project covered three of the largest buildings at Promega Madison, with more than 1,200 parts assessed. In addition to physically inventorying the parts and updating our operations software with accurate information, I worked on standardizing the material descriptions. When I began this project in June, many of the material descriptions had typos or inaccuracies, or were too vague for the identification of parts. As such, I went through and manually updated more than 300 descriptions. Once I gained a better understanding of the materials, I designed a standardized naming convention and built a custom ChatGPT-based tool to generate material descriptions. This will ensure that the material descriptions remain standardized and effective for years to come.
These projects directly aligned with my coursework, allowing me to capitalize on my strengths and identify areas of continuous learning. For instance, with the kit packaging projects, I was able to utilize affinity diagrams and 5S practices to develop effective solutions. With the facilities spare parts project, I applied project management skills that I have been taught in a variety of courses. Through this internship, I have solidified my desire to pursue industrial engineering and I look forward to using my education in future career opportunities.
Madison is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in Industrial Engineering with a focus on Data Analytics.
Erin Hamilton – Scientific Applications Intern
This past summer, I had the opportunity to work on the Scientific Applications Team as the Scientific Applications Intern. The Scientific Applications Team works with internal and customer facing requests to alter chemistries developed by Promega to expand their product capabilities. The biggest project that I worked on this summer was extracting High Molecular Weight DNA from different agricultural seeds that was further used for whole genome sequencing.
This project required me to draw on many skills I’ve learned through my college education. I was able to directly apply basic theoretical knowledge that I had gained from scientific coursework, as well as apply technical skills such as experimental design and data analysis. Other skills such as attention to detail became very important when running different experiments, as I had to consider many different variables including concentrations, volume, and different reagents.
This project also allowed me to grow unique skills that haven’t been a focus of my education. For example, my problem solving abilities were exercised as I ran into different roadblocks that taught me how to better troubleshoot experiments effectively. I also collaborated with many experienced scientists at Promega, which allowed me to improve my communication skills in a corporate and scientific environment. Overall, this experience not only solidified my existing knowledge but also equipped me with new skills that will be valuable in my future career.
The impact of my project resulted in Promega being able to show that their technologies can be expanded to samples such as agricultural seeds, further expanding product capabilities and contributing to future customers that could purchase kits from Promega.
My experience at Promega this past summer definitely had an impact on what I hope to do in my future career. I had never experienced working in the biotechnology industry before this internship and I was still deciding if I wanted to pursue a career in pharmacy or a career in biotechnology and research. Through my experience at Promega, I was able to find that I really enjoyed working in industry. Being a part of the Scientific Applications team this summer allowed me to realize that I would like to pursue a future career in industry science.
Erin is a senior at the University of Wisconsin – Madison majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology.
Ellie Salton – Quality Assurance/Validation Intern
My most impactful project focused on improving access to existing bulk mixing processes and aiding in the creation of new ones. The goal of the project was to create an easily accessible database of all currently validated and implemented mixing processes. This database would improve internal and external awareness, hopefully leading to faster product/protocol realization by cutting down on the time-consuming process of validating new protocols.
I created two programs alongside the collection of data. One allows you to search the database based on specific search criteria, such as batch size or solution classification, and the other creates a new manufacturing protocol (MP) with automatically entered data from an existing MP, if a similar protocol already exists. This required me to write Python code for automatic sorting. It was particularly challenging because no one on my team knew Python, so I had to learn to bounce ideas off of myself, or rethink my approach if I was running into stubborn errors.
When I started my internship, I wasn’t expecting to use my coding skills almost every day. I took one class on Python and hated it, but after applying my learning in a real-world setting, I can truthfully say I don’t loathe coding like I used to. I now view it more as problem solving, which is the type of work I gravitate toward.
Ellie is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
Vayda Stadheim – R&D Product Development Data and Records Intern
My internship experience was very broad, allowing me to tap into a wide range of areas that may apply to my future career. I created project status reports, analyzed lab data, and implemented AI tools to improve efficiency. Stepping into my first industry internship, I was most excited to explore the new world of AI applications. This was an area in which I saw value but had not yet had the chance to explore deeply. After meeting with experienced AI users at Promega, collaborating with my team, and lots of trial and error, I was able to develop several custom GPTs that are now available for use by several teams.
The R&D Project Management group uses custom GPTs to pull data from past projects that will inform initial decisions and document new product development work. This includes, but is not limited to, lessons learned, requirements and acceptance criteria, and timeline predictions.
While analyzing data for R&D Diagnostic teams, I felt the need for AI assistance to save time on the tedious task of processing Excel files. Using basic coding knowledge and problem-solving skills, I developed easy-to-use data processing models. This task, which was previously a manual effort for busy scientists, now happens rapidly for an array of data types.
When I came to Promega, I had limited knowledge of AI capabilities and their applications. After 14 weeks of work in this area, I am confident in saying that I have added a unique tool to my toolbox that universally increases employee efficiency. As I continue my internship this fall, I am eager to continue witnessing the transformative impact of AI.
Vayda is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in Industrial Engineering with a focus on Engineering Data Analytics.
Interested in interning at Promega? Keep an eye on our Careers page for Summer 2025 internship opportunities!
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