What Have Longhorns Been Up To This Summer?
Read to learn more about the internships, experiential learning opportunities and programs students have been participating in this summer.
Although the summertime finds most Longhorns away from campus, the break between semesters allows students to bring their talent and skills across the world. As students begin to head back to the Forty Acres, read more about what Longhorns have been up to this summer.
Design Thinking and Strategy Lead UT Senior to an IBM Internship – When tackling an advertising degree, it might not seem like hands-on design skills are necessary. But University of Texas senior Emmy Chen discovered how valuable pairing the two can be — not only through her coursework, but also in a corporate setting. This summer, her skillset carried her into one of the most competitive rooms she’s been in yet: a visual design internship at Blue Studio, IBM’s in-house creative agency.
UT Austin Villa Finishes Strong at RoboCup 2026 – The award-winning robot soccer team from Texas Robotics, UT Austin Villa, traveled to Incheon, South Korea, in July where they competed in RoboCup 2026, the world’s largest and most prestigious robotics competition. The team, led by professors Peter Stone and Joydeep Biswas, is made up of three doctoral students and three undergraduates. This was the second year that UT Austin Villa participated in a humanoid division, building on a 20-year history of success that included dominant runs in the 3D Simulation League and a Standard Platform League world championship in 2012.
Summer at CERN – This May, students from UT made their way to Geneva, Switzerland, to study modern particle and nuclear physics at CERN and other nearby labs. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, including the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile ring buried beneath the Switzerland-France border that accelerates subatomic particles close to the speed of light.
Publishing in a Leading Journal as Undergraduates – Three recent College of Natural Sciences graduates are taking bragging rights with them to medical school and the workforce, having recently published in one of the world’s most highly cited scientific journals. The team’s paper was published in the journal Nature and focused on a mysterious protein at the heart of a longstanding relationship between a microbe and its insect host.
Longhorns at the 2026 World Cup
The Longhorn on the World Cup Stage – In July, Cockrell School of Engineering alumnus Ismail Elfath officiated the World Cup semifinal game between England and Argentina, his fourth of this year’s World Cup. While an undergraduate student, Elfath was a member of the UT club soccer team, and he continued playing in and officiating at local leagues around Central Texas after graduating.
Behind The World Cup – Since 2024, Will Acheampong has served as a strategist on the U.S. Soccer Federation’s strategy team. It’s a role he describes as similar to corporate strategy work, except the goal is to grow the sport of soccer in America. This summer, that work happened at the highest possible volume, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S. for the first time since 1994.
