Maria Violaris, a PhD student at the University of Oxford, did two internships in industry during her undergraduate studies – one at the innovation consultancy Innovia Technology, and one at the quantum software start-up Riverlane. She speaks to Laura Hiscott about how she has benefitted from these experiences.
This is the first in a series of internship case studies that we are publishing throughout August. You can find the full series here.
For Maria Violaris, who graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Oxford in 2020, the main motivation to do a summer internship was to find out what it’s like to work in industry. She went to a careers fair hosted by her university, where she met employees of Innovia Technology – a Cambridge-based science innovation consultancy that helps its client companies improve products – and found out about its internship programme.
Although Violaris didn’t know before the event that science consultancies even existed, she thought that Innovia sounded like a fun place to work because of the variety of projects it does, which meant she could learn about lots of different areas of physics. She applied with a CV and cover letter, followed by a video call in which she was asked physics-related technical questions. Violaris was then invited to an in-person interview where she had to look at a case study and come up with ideas of how to approach it. While this may sound daunting, it is an excellent opportunity to practise for post-university job applications and interviews, many of which follow a similar process.
After finding out she had been successful, Violaris moved to Cambridge for the summer of 2019, where she worked in multidisciplinary teams on several projects, including one looking at a cosmetic product made by one of Innovia’s clients. “We were trying to improve the texture of the product, so I was looking at the physics of how the fluid stretches, and the difference in how it behaves when tapped or rubbed onto skin. I worked with behavioural scientists who were investigating how people typically use the product, and with chemists who were looking at its chemical composition.” Over the course of the internship, Violaris also got involved in a project to improve surgical hammers to reduce their risk of being fractured, and a project to enhance the taste of a product for a food company.
Innovia encourages its interns to maintain a good work–life balance, which meant that Violaris had plenty of time for social activities, playing ultimate frisbee with her colleagues once a week and going to the pub together on Friday evenings. She even joined a yoga group at the company.
Having enjoyed her time at Innovia, Violaris sought out another internship for the summer of 2020. At this point she knew she was most excited by quantum physics. By searching online for quantum computing companies, she found the website of quantum software start-up Riverlane, also based in Cambridge, and discovered that it runs an internship programme, which she applied to successfully. “My project involved lots of coding. I put together some Raspberry Pis and circuit boards, and ran Riverlane’s quantum operating system on the circuit boards to create a model quantum computing lab,” says Violaris. “I used this model to create science-communication materials, including a video explaining how the system worked.”
At the time of Violaris’ internships, Riverlane was a start-up with around 30 employees, while Innovia was 20 years old and had 80 employees, so Violaris experienced working for both a new and a more established company. “The systems of work at Innovia were more established,” she says. “At Riverlane, there were more unknowns about how the company would develop, and there was more flexibility around how it collaborated with other companies.” However, both internships gave Violaris a positive experience of working in industry, and a useful insight for her future career. “I decided to do a PhD after graduating, because I really wanted to do research on quantum physics,” she says, “but I’m considering going into either research or industry afterwards. It was great to see a quantum computing company from inside, as that’s an area that I am keen to explore in the future.”
I developed general research skills and learnt how to find out about a topic quickly, which is useful in both industry and academia
Maria Violaris
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Additionally, she gained some valuable skills that she has already been able to draw on during her PhD at Oxford, which she started in October 2020. “I developed general research skills and learnt how to find out about a topic quickly, which is useful in both industry and academia,” she says. “It was also interesting to see the companies’ productivity systems and how they manage teams of people.” In fact, during her final year as an undergraduate, Violaris started a quantum-information student society, where she used her experience to manage group projects.
As for making the most out of an internship, Violaris’ advice is “Ask a lot of questions, especially at the start, because this will help you get going quickly. And don’t be afraid to contribute your ideas. You may think you don’t have enough experience in the area to have useful ideas, but actually the opposite is true. You have a fresh perspective, and in my experience companies value that.”
