Research opportunity changes life trajectory for undergrad
Industrial engineering (IE) student Nathan Batres planned to go into industry or get an internship after graduating in May, but he changed his mind after participating in a summer program that introduced him to research.
“Batres is a talented IE undergraduate,” Clinical Associate Professor Quintin “Dr. Q” Wiliams said. “He was my research mentee during the UIC Summer Research Opportunities Program.”
During the eight-week program, Batres stayed on the UIC campus and had the opportunity to conduct research under the guidance of Williams and complete a research project.
“It was more like dipping your feet in and seeing what it’s like conducting independent research in the fashion that they would in graduate school versus just working with someone’s lab as undergraduates,” Batres said. “We had a weekly graduate application portfolio seminar where we worked on our CV or personal letter. We also met with people in graduate programs who would help us through our research.”
At the end of the program, Batres presented his research during the Illinois Summer Research Symposium at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which featured cutting-edge research, achievements, and the creativity of the summer scholars. Nearly 140 scholars presented their research that has been developed through the mentorship and training of faculty members from across a variety of disciplines.
His presentation was well accepted, and Batres was named the second-place winner for his research titled “Utilizing a Lean Management Approach to Influence Production in a Multilingual, High-Growth Food Company,” which addressed the issue of improving communication and production in a food processing company with significant language barriers between management and the labor personnel, and an organizational instability due to being a high-growth firm.
“I appreciated having Dr. Q as my mentor. He kept reminding me to keep my emphasis on the people and not on numbers, which that stuff comes along as well,” Batres said. “But he wanted me to make sure that when I delivered this research to the judges that they would understand that was the main idea. And that is what was important.”
As an ROTC member, Batres is obligated to join the Air Force, where he will be commissioned as an officer after graduation.
“I already have my job. I’m going to be doing operations analysis. It’s all about streamlining and optimization and turning regular problems into data problems and using that to support proposals for commanders,” he said.
Inspired by his research, he also wants to continue his education in the Air Force. He will use military tuition assistance to obtain a master’s degree and later enroll in an advanced degree program, which will allow him to turn getting a PhD into a full-time assignment.
“I had initially planned to let my career guide me by whatever happens to be opportune at the moment, but now I am actively seeking out ways to have the military fund my further education,” he said. “There is much more structure in my future goals as I align a career in the military with the pursuit of participating in academia. Although I am still going to allow opportunities to guide me through each next step, these two goals will remain constant as I try to advance my career.”