Spending a summer at the Kansas City Fed

It feels like just yesterday that the Kansas City Fed welcomed 33 interns for the summer. They hailed from 23 different universities and were placed in 15 different departments across all four locations as well as remotely. For the past 10 weeks, interns have experienced hands-on learning, networking and mentorship opportunities, and teambuilding activities with their cohort. To celebrate National Intern Day, learn about the Bank’s 2025 internship program.

One of the goals of the Kansas City Fed’s internship program is to give interns the opportunity to directly contribute to the trust and confidence in the nation’s financial system through challenging work assignments. From their first week, interns immersed themselves in their respective departments and projects.

“My favorite part of being a SRM intern has been traveling for bank exams and doing hands-on working during these examinations,” said Maddie Kearney, who interned at the Denver branch.

Timothy Fong, a Research facilitator intern, has enjoyed learning from his supervisor and the economists in his department.

“My favorite part of this internship has been working with economists and understanding more about economic policy, optimizing economic models, and learning more about high performance computing,” Fong said.

The Kansas City Fed also provides its interns with many chances to forge relationships with each other and network with employees. Each intern received a supervisor and mentor, and engaged in Think Tank presentations once a week highlighting different business lines across the Bank

For Lauren Cavanaugh, a Public Affairs intern in Oklahoma City, her favorite part interning at the Fed has been getting to meet new people and build relationships with others across the 10th District

“Everyone has been more than willing to offer their help and knowledge so that I can have the best experience during my time here,” Cavanaugh said.

Gunnar Boughan, an analyst intern in the Law Enforcement department at Kansas City, echoed these sentiments.

“Everyone has been so welcoming and supportive, which makes me comfortable to ask questions after making a mistake,” Boughan said.

Another key characteristic of the Kansas City Fed’s internship is the intern group project, a cross-departmental project where interns are tasked with developing a recommendation to bring new connection opportunities to Bank employees. Our interns presented their final projects to a panel of judges on July 29.

Interns often had to juggle each other’s schedules and coordinate meetings with employees around the Bank to inform their project’s recommendation.

“Working on the intern project has been challenging and rewarding at the same time,” Kearney said. “The nature of our idea has required additional meetings with legal, ethics, budget, and P&C staff so we divide and conquer as needed.”

It also provided opportunities for collaboration and incorporating different perspectives to reach their final goal.

“My experience of working on the intern project has taught me the significance of teamwork and how far it can go,” Cavanaugh said.

The summer wasn’t without its challenges, which interns overcame and learned from. The Bank’s internship program emphasizes the importance of personal development and growth through increasingly complex assignments.

“My writing skills have been repeatedly put to the test. The marks, though low, are increasing,” said Morgan Mastrianni, a Regional Affairs intern at the Omaha branch.

For Timothy Fong, learning new programming languages such as SQL, R, and SAS has been challenging. Gunnar Boughan learned to navigate Tableau.

“Before my first day I had no idea what Tableau was,” Boughan said. “While it has been difficult at times it ultimately has been super rewarding to build my technical skills.”

Whatever they encountered, interns built on pre-existing skills and learned something about themselves in the process.

“Talking to people from outside of the organization is the best way to learn about issues affecting the communities served by the Bank,” Mastrianni said. “It has been a personally rewarding experience.”

Interns also saw personal growth throughout the summer.

“Through many different experiences and meeting new faces, I have been able to notice what I can work on, but also, what I thrive in,” Cavanaugh said.

No matter what department they were in, each intern will walk away from this summer with experiences they can apply to their future endeavors.

“As a PhD student, I’m used to writing for a narrow audience,” Mastrianni said. “I’m walking away from my internship with new communication skills that can help me expand my audience and broaden my research impact.”

By providing ample opportunities for interns to meet different people throughout the Bank, interns have also learned how to connect with new settings and people.

“I plan to incorporate my internship experiences this upcoming year by using the technical skills I have gained and confidence in group work I now have,” Boughan said. “I also plan to use the communication and professionalism skills I have developed this summer in my life.”