Every year, as part of the IOHRM program, students complete hands-on internships across a wide range of industries to apply evidence-based principles, build core professional competencies, and address real-world organizational challenges. Throughout their experiences, students gain vital industry exposure while contributing measurable value to their host organizations.
To showcase these achievements, the IOHRM program hosted internship presentations where students shared their main projects, key takeaways, and advice for future cohorts. Read on to learn more about this year's student experiences!
Delaney Clark — Internship at: Financial Technology Partners
Role: People Operations Intern
Key Projects: Worked across the full employee lifecycle, focusing on employee development, performance management, and offboarding transitions. Delaney built new hire welcome materials, onboarding resources, and supported training week and feedback processes for the summer analyst program. She also coordinated materials for performance review cycles and attended executive leadership meetings and exit interviews.
Jamie Da Costa — Internship at: Swire Coca-Cola
Role: HR Compliance Team Intern
Key Projects: Focused on employee policy guides by identifying applicable state-level legal requirements across multiple operating areas. Personally reviewed 87 company
policies to isolate 26 specific state laws that required compliance. Developed Swire, an AI-enabled compliance monitoring system named CHAD (“Compliance Guru”), to ensure ongoing organizational workflows remain legally compliant.
Ella Drawbridge — Internship at: Seattle City Light
Role: People & Culture Business Partner Intern | Seattle City Light (Publicly Owned Electric Company)
Key Projects: Supported the People & Culture Business Partner team by improving internal accessibility of information and stakeholder engagement. Projects included creating an anti-discrimination resource one-pager, delivering a new employee presentation, and developing a Business Partner Resource Library to streamline internal communication.
Kaylee McElrath — Internship at: ECRS (Electronic Cash Register Software Corporation)
Role: Talent Management & HR Intern
Key Projects: Conducted a comprehensive job description audit evaluating FLSA classification, compliance, and accuracy. Designed a leadership competency model establishing clear managerial performance expectations, alongside a slide deck detailing a competency scoring framework and performance rating scale.
Leanna Murphy — Internship at: Shurtape Technologies
Role: HRIS & Operations Intern
Key Projects: Addressed administrative inefficiencies where HR was handling excessive manager tasks within the system. Designed and distributed a company-wide survey to identify manager pain points, then authored and presented a 110-page, 10-section HRIS Manager Guide directly to the entire company.
Ailyn Sanchez Corral —Internship at: Feralloy Corporation (Parent Company: Reliance)
Role: Learning & Development Intern
Key Projects: Conducted a formal training needs assessment to analyze why frontline plant employees were engaging in risk-taking behavior. Developed a 3-tiered leadership
training curriculum, daily frontline safety prompts, and a full year of onboarding content tailored for new safety professionals.
Sydney Steelman — Internship at: Ahold Delhaize
Role: Workforce Planning & Insights Intern
Key Projects: Created a standardized HR scorecard connecting HR activities directly to business outcomes. Defined key performance indicators (KPIs), established a recommended targets sheet for health reviews, and presented the scorecard to the HR leadership team while assisting them with its application.
Tessa Trate — Internship at: Red Ventures
Role: HR Innovation Intern
Key Projects: Built a Slack-based AI assistant designed to serve as a thinking partner for managers. The agent flags vague, biased, or risky language in workplace communications
and helps managers clarify concerns, strengthen feedback, and prepare for performance reviews or difficult conversations.
Charlie Wills — Internship at: Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits
Role: People Services Intern
Key Projects: Led a burnout examination for the People Services team using Employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS) to evaluate employee stress, presenting key findings to sub-team and executive leaders. Additional work included a succession planning predictive model, survey creation, job analysis, and a supplier project.
Marleigh Zetle — Internship at: Duke Energy
Role: ES&S Change Management Intern
Key Projects: Applied Prosci’s ADKAR change management framework (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) to organizational initiatives. Revamped an employee-wide SharePoint site for software initiatives, authored handoff guides, developed executive updates for business partners, and assisted with a culture assessment project.
IOHRM class of 2027
