Yohannes Mulualem ’28 is making an impact on The Hill at the same time he’s growing career-ready skills. Thanks to his on-campus data internship, the data analytics major is applying his classroom knowledge to institutional priorities and advancing his credentials.
Denison’s data internship program solves a problem in a classically Denison way: Combining necessity with connections creates new opportunities. It’s the brainchild of Associate Director of Institutional Research and Data Governance, Kelli Van Wasshenova, a member of the data and decision support team that manages an ever-increasing number of data-driven projects across the college.
“I knew we needed help — and that our students are just incredible,” Van Wasshenova said. “They’re organized, motivated, and have great communication and analytics skills.”
Her seven interns are matched with mentors and projects, gaining practical workplace experience on data projects that help inform administrative decisions. They are also paired with career coaches within the Knowlton Center for Career Exploration — Denison’s nationally ranked career preparation program — who guide them in translating those opportunities into marketable skills and impressive interview talking points.
It’s a win-win for Mulualem. While he lends his talents and energy to solve challenges, he’s also working alongside a data-professional and mentor, building real-world experience for his resumé and strengthening his presentation skills.
Joining the data internship program with only one year of data analytics classes under his belt, Mulualem nevertheless felt well prepared to take on the challenges. “I was introduced to R, the primary tool for analysis, in my DA 101 class,” he said. “That set me up for success in this internship.”
One of three data analytics majors in the program, Mulualem has completed multiple undertakings for the college. Most recently, he assembled a dashboard that showcased the many ways in which Denison students combine academic majors. Mulualem took several years of data, cleaned and organized it, and built an interactive data display for the Provost’s Office.
The result is an elegant dashboard that allows users to see heat maps of various combinations of majors.
“Yohannes taught himself how to do data visualizations,” said his mentor, Jennifer Cornman, Denison’s institutional research specialist. “His ingenuity and curiosity add to his ability to really dig into a problem to get to the right answers.”
The internship program has already given Mulualem a window into the growing number of data professions. Each Friday, Van Wassanova arranges online calls with professionals in the field, including a prospect research and portfolio associate with the Obama Foundation and a retired chief retail officer with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.
“The Friday speakers have opened my mind to all kinds of careers,” said Mulualem.
He’s working on a project to measure the success of Denison’s free Kaplan course program. By analyzing and comparing data from the national student clearinghouse and the college, Mulualem will help the Knowlton Career Center gauge the helpfulness of the Kaplan courses to Denisonians in achieving their graduate school aspirations.
Cornman said this is a complicated scenario, merging three different data sets, and that Mulualem has already drafted proposals for ranking graduate schools to organize the data more efficiently.
“He sees things that aren’t necessarily part of the problem and digs in further when he recognizes something that’s important to the work,” Cornman said.
For Mulualem, the internship has been another example of the many ways he’s felt supported by Denison’s faculty and staff.
“Denison is a great place,” he said. “I have such a strong sense of community here. The faculty and staff really care.”
Denison’s liberal arts education ensures every student acquires skills in quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as experience in communication, critical thinking, and working in teams — all of which are consistently assigned high values by employers.
Data interns with a range of academic majors, including global commerce, economics, psychology, environmental and sustainability studies, have taken on an equally diverse array of projects. These include:
- Student leader intern Klara Thelusma ’26 led her peers through projects and analyses.
- Quality and governance intern Yaa Mensah Asante ’26 developed a higher education data profession survey.
- Digital storytelling intern Keesha Joseph ’26 wrote and recorded a series of “Data Curious” podcasts.
- Communication intern Zandie Lawson ’26 leaned into her aspirations of becoming a lawyer by writing the team’s internal AI usage policy.
- Analysis intern Cole Shegan Siniawski ’26 reconfigured a data dashboard, transforming a broken data flow into a working outcomes dashboard for Denison’s Office of Institutional Research.
- Analysis intern Vidit Bhandari supported the implementation of Denison’s new data lake, an experience that has set him up for success in his role at Sallie Mae.
