UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sarah Newby had one goal when she went to the fall 2014 career fair at Penn State: hand her résumé to an ExxonMobil representative. New to the materials science and engineering (MatSE) major, she was excited for any MatSE experience she could get her hands on, and one of her professors had mentioned that ExxonMobil was looking specifically for MatSE students.

Newby, a senior Schreyer Scholar working toward a bachelor of science in MatSE and a bachelor of arts in Chinese, traveled to Houston in fall 2015 after landing a semester-long product-development internship with the company.

“ExxonMobil has a fantastic internship program. The company assigns projects that would have otherwise been completed by the full-time employees, and challenges interns to produce results that can help advance the project to the next stage,” Newby said.

Newby worked with ExxonMobil Chemical Company’s Gas Phase and Differentiated Polyethylene Product Development group, which turns polymer-based research into products for commercialization. Her internship focused on blown film grades of polyethylene, the material commonly used to create plastic bags and plastic wrap.

“It’s a really exciting group to be involved with. Product development has ties to both research and marketing, which allowed me to expand my knowledge of polymer fundamentals while also learning about the bigger picture,” she said.

The company produces polyethylene resin that they test on blown film lines. In the blown film process, a liquid polymer melt is inflated with air to form a tube-like bubble that is strung up over 60 feet to allow the film to solidify before it is flattened into sheets. After the sheets become solid, they are inspected in order to provide feedback to the ExxonMobil team working on optimizing the product.

“One of my top-priority projects focused on lab-scale blending of polyethylene with a target polymer to identify blends that produce defect-free film. Successfully identifying these new blends opens the opportunity for ExxonMobil’s polyethylene products to expand into new markets,” she said.

Newby relished the opportunity to work on important projects for a Fortune 500 company as a student.

“It was an awesome, eye-opening experience for me. Every day I was learning something new about the company,” she said.

The internship also reinforced the importance of what she was learning in the classroom.

“Before the ExxonMobil internship, my classes helped me build a foundational knowledge in MatSE. When I returned from ExxonMobil, I found that I began to focus on how the classroom concepts can be applied. My internship experience connected classroom lectures to current problems that companies are tackling every day,” she said.

ExxonMobil’s internship program culminates with a research poster exhibition and a final presentation that all employees can attend. Newby showcased her polyethylene projects and spent time answering fellow employees’ questions.

“I enjoyed seeing all of my work come together at the end, and having the opportunity to answer questions with my team made me very proud,” said Newby, who will return to ExxonMobil in summer 2016 for a second internship. “I realized that my efforts really did have an impact.”