Research, internships, and relaxation: How Herff students are spending their summer break
June 18, 2026
What a difference a day can make. When students at the Herff College of Engineering officially began their summer break, life at the college seemed to change overnight. Study areas suddenly emptied of students cramming for their final exams. Silence descended upon the hallways and classrooms that had, during the semester, bustled with activity and once-crowded parking lots emptied out.
But that doesn’t mean students have completely disengaged from the college or lost interest in their studies.
“What I’m really looking forward to in my junior year is learning, going into classes that really specialize in a lot of the fields that I’m interested in and really diving deeper into engineering,” said mechanical engineering student William Surbrook, who completed his sophomore year at the Herff College of Engineering in Spring 2026.
Like Surbrook, electrical and computer engineering sophomore Madison Nolen eagerly awaits the opportunity to take classes more tailored to her interests. She’s spending her summer exploring some of those interests, doing research with Dr. Eddie Jacobs. Nolen spends about 20 hours a week, split up over five days, in Jacob’s lab, working on a device that will help determine if plants are over- or under-hydrated.
“I find the agricultural practices very interesting,” Nolen said. “I wanted to expand outside of my degree, in a way, to practice being in a research field and to gain research experience.”
Incoming electrical and computer engineering junior Dallas Mielke is also spending his summer doing research, though on his own time. During the break, Mielke and a friend have spent time developing a device that uses artificial intelligence to determine boundaries, such as whether a basketball lands in or out of bounds.
“Anything that has some type of physical boundary, this device will say, if you cross it, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’” Mielke said.
Mielke works on that project when he’s not working his full-time job as an assistant manager at Firehouse Subs. Surbrook, on the other hand, combined engineering education with summer work, spending his break as an intern at Elos Medtech, a medical manufacturing plant in Memphis. Summer 2026 marks Surbrook’s second internship at the company, where he assists professional engineers, many of whom are Herff alums.
“It’s really cool to talk to some of the engineers on the team who’ve had professors that I’ve had, whose experiences are similar to mine… I’ve gotten so much hands-on experience and learned so much about real-world problem solving, which is very hard to learn in school,” Surbrook said.
Of course, summer isn’t all work and no play for the Herff students.
Nolen enjoyed her 19th birthday with a family vacation to Chicago. And while she prepares to earn her Python certification, she’s also studying the art of baking cinnamon rolls, swimming and rollerblading.
Surbrook attended a comic convention in Nashville and is planning a trip to Georgia, where his girlfriend, also a University of Memphis student, is interning and working as a stage manager for a theater company.
And when Mielke isn’t at his day job or working on his personal project, he spends time involved with The View church on campus or on the pickleball court.
“I’m an avid pickleball enjoyer,” Mielke said. “Pickleball is such a fun sport. You don’t even have to be good to enjoy it. It doesn’t take as much coordination as tennis. It’s just something that you can go out and do with your friends to have a good time.”
Despite having family in the Memphis area where they’re being housed for the summer, all three students spent the Spring 2026 semester as residents of the Engineering Living and Learning Center (ELLC).
“I find it really fun and really enjoyable to live with like-minded people, people that understand engineering, people that you’re also in the same classes with, people that can actually help you and study together and, really, it’s just a great way to meet those people and have friends,” Surbrook said.
Mielke and Nolen will return to the ELLC in the Fall 2026 semester, with Mielke serving as a peer mentor and Nolen serving as a redshirt program mentor, helping freshmen students meet the math criteria they need to continue their engineering studies. She also hopes to earn a position as a teaching assistant.
In the meantime, all three Herff students will continue to enjoy time away from class while staying connected to campus.