Since 2018, Cornell University has annually welcomed 25-40 interns to a summer career development program offered through the Alliance for Diversity and Inclusion (ADI). Frequently, Cornell Information Technologies hires more ADI interns than any other division or department and about half of the 2024 cohort were matched with CIT supervisors.

This year, interns were offered the optional opportunity to talk about their experience through individual profile stories and IT@Cornell will include highlights from several of these profiles in each issue through early October. This week, read about:

• Amani Alqaisi: Pursuing dual degrees in Computer Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and Computer Science at Grinnell College, Alqaisi was hired to help the Web Accessibility team with their annual evaluation of third-party applications. She developed an accessibility checker tool in JavaScript for validating color contrast based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and leveraged software tools like SiteImprove to complete WCAG checklists for multiple Cornell websites.
• Lily Yang: To better understand Cornell’s digital landscape, the Custom Development team hired ADI interns to begin compiling an inventory of the university’s websites. Yang, a Cornell Information Science major, leaned into her Python expertise to efficiently organize thousands of websites into domains. She also learned to delve into Drupal using Pantheon and honed her skills in CSS and Twig.
• Henry Sun: As a Project Coordination intern, Sun’s primary focus was the Mass Communication and Marketing Project where he created documentation and status reports and coordinated communications between various teams working on the project. Sun, a Cornell Arts and Sciences sophomore, also explored the use of Artificial Intelligence project management tools and presented his findings to members of the IT Project Management Office.