MSIM student Peeya Thacker was honored for her internship performance at the 18th Annual Research Park Intern Awards ceremony on July 25. Thacker was named "Most Outstanding Graduate Student Intern" for her work at COUNTRY Financial DigitaLab in the University's Research Park.
During her eleven-week internship, Thacker served as a project manager for the company's Customer Data Platform (CDP) project, leading a team of four interns to strategize and develop an implementation roadmap for the company's key 2025 initiative. She also worked as a data developer on the data engineering and analytics team, "developing a data pipeline to ingest data into the company's data lake for enhanced analytics."
"Peeya's leadership and organizational skills were very important to structuring the intern team into different areas to bring the CDP project together—which led to an implementation roadmap and POC [proof of concept] that will be utilized in the fall semester," said Julia Hart, DigitaLab site director at COUNTRY Financial. "Her enthusiasm to learn and lead others has been valuable in both projects."
According to Thacker, her favorite part of the internship was the people. "Everyone was so open and eager to help, fostering an environment that encouraged learning and growth. I cherished every moment, from navigating new challenges and learning countless new things to building meaningful relationships and creating lasting memories," she said.
After completing her MSIM degree, Thacker would like to find employment that will help her refine her interests and career direction. She also plans to pursue an MBA and further develop her management and leadership skills. Thacker discovered the internship opportunity at the Research Park through the University's "strong alumni network."
"Thanks to their support and connections, I was able to secure this internship, which turned out to be an incredibly rewarding experience," she said.