Incoming Refining Tech Services Intern

Marathon Petroleum, Robinson IL Refinery

Spring 2026

I've accepted a co-op offer from Marathon Petroleum Corporation for the Spring 2026 semester! I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join the largest petroleum refiner in the United States!

I've had the opportunity to connect with over 130 engineers with Marathon before starting my position. Out of those, I've personally had phone calls with around 40 of them discussing their career at Marathon. These informative 'interviews' were what convinced me to apply to Marathon in the first place.

Thanks to John Beck, Abigail Coffin, and Seth Barefoot for helping me prepare my resume, cover letter, and for the interviewing process.

Thanks to Marathon engineers Zach Heck, Sarah Caldbeck, Michael Torrez, John Kasiborski, Caleb Neufeld, and Brad Martin for helping me throughout the referral process.

Thanks to Kaitlin Peraino, Taylor Thorpe, and Brendan Moorehead for an awesome interviewing process.

Thanks to John Swearingen for your continuing mentorship in my professional and personal life.

Thanks to Tom Minor, Loren Barnhurst, Bob Chaney, Tony Saliba, Michael Elsass, and Kevin Myers for their academic support leading up to this point.

Special Thanks to my parents for their love and support throughout the last few insane months and the ups and downs in this journey.

Chemical Process Intern

University of Dayton Research Institute, Curran Place - Dayton, OH

January 2025 - present

I have recently started working in the Power & Energy division at the University of Dayton Research Institute, with the Aerospace Product Support & Applied Digital Systems group.

While I have not yet had to opportunity to contribute to as many projects as I have at Fuels & Combustion, I can tell you what to expect in the future:

I will be contributing to the development of a mobile petroleum desulfurization unit to convert high sulfur jet fuels into low sulfur diesel fuels.

I will be gaining experience by helping contribute to the design of extraction towers, catalytic reaction design, recycle processes, process flow diagrams, and more!

For the rest of the Spring semester (present - May), the unit will be designed and parts will be ordered. Only theoretical design and project development will happen during this time.

My internship is continuing through the Summer, when the unit will be constructed and the actual chemical processes I'll help design can be tested!

So far I've developed the technical data package draft for the unit’s design. The technical data package contains information about manufacturing processes, chemical processes, and safety requirements.

Pictured next to me is the previous design of the extraction towers that extract the sulfur from the jet fuels.

This section of my work experience will be dynamically updated as I learn new things and accomplish project goals, so stay tuned.

Fuel Science Intern

University of Dayton Research Institute, Shroyer Park Center - Dayton, OH

October 2024 - present

I have obtained great amounts of industry knowledge and experience throughout my ongoing internship with the Fuels & Energetic Materials division of the University of Dayton Research Institute.

I have had the privilege and opportunity to contribute to many research projects regarding aviation turbine fuels (jet fuels).

I have analyzed gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, and relative permittivity data of over 70+ international jet fuels to correlate and model various fuel properties, in some cases reviewing and correcting data to increase accuracy of analysis by up to 30%.

In one project, I used advanced simulated distillation software to generate over 100 distillation points for each jet fuel. To verify the quality and accuracy of these points, multiple software packages were used to adhere to interlab study reproducibility standards.

For another project, I tested the effects on dielectric constant of various fuel additives such as FSII, CI/LI, and SDA. The dielectric constant is likely used on modern aircraft to perform onboard fuel gauging.

The findings were quite revolutionary, and they are available under the Research page of this website.

My project on additives, as well as future work with the effects of water solubility, was recently sponsored by NASA via the Ohio Space Grant Consortium.

I collaborated with small teams of around 4 - 7 other research professionals to deliver accurate results, meeting and exceeding project deadlines.