LSU Industrial Engineering Grad Student Interns With Tesla
October 4, 2023
BATON ROUGE, LA – LSU Industrial Engineering graduate student Min Pun is braving the Texas heat while he interns at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in Austin this fall. Pun, who is originally from Nepal, has worked for Tesla before and jumped at the chance to have an internship there again.
In 2021, Pun was offered a summer internship at Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada (less than an hour from Lake Tahoe), where he served as a quality engineering intern working on projects related to Statistical Process Control, Gage R&R, Non-Conformance, Root Cause Analysis, PFMEA, and Control Plans. According to Tesla’s website, Gigafactory Nevada is one of the world’s highest volume plants for electric motors, energy storage products, vehicle powertrains, and batteries, producing billions of cells per year.
Pun enjoyed his Gigafactory Nevada internship so much that, in 2023, he began a fall internship at Gigafactory Texas in Austin, serving again as a quality engineering intern.
“In Nevada, I worked on Model 3/Y battery packs, where I was drafting the control charts for high-voltage joints of battery packs and also the validation study for the new End of Line testers; whereas in Austin, I’m working on a project related to Cyber Truck’s Drive Unit, where I am trying to compile and analyze the program files for Drive Unit parts’ dimensional measurements,” Pun said.
What Pun enjoys most about his internship in Austin is the “ever-learning environment, open-door policy, hands-on experience, and personal growth aspect of his internship,” he said. He’s also loving the city that likes to “keep it weird.”
“I loved both of my internships, but I love Austin as a city,” Pun said. “Austin is great as there are so many places to explore nearby, work is accessible to downtown and the airports, and on top of that, people are amazing here. I’ve only been here for a month, but in my free time, I’ve been visiting amazing restaurants, food trucks, and artsy places with my friends.”
Austin is nearly seven hours from Baton Rouge, but LSU is a long way from Nepal, where Pun was born and raised. He moved to the U.S. in 2014, when he enrolled at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La., to work on his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He then went to work for medical device company Zimmer Biomet as a quality engineer before deciding to work on his master’s in industrial engineering at LSU.
“While working for Zimmer Biomet, I realized there is a massive gap between what I studied in my undergrad and what I was doing there, mainly through the perspective of the course and concepts that I learned in my undergraduate degree,” Pun said. “Concepts like statistical analysis, quality management, process improvement, lean methodologies, which are crucial aspects of Quality Engineering (QE), were missing in undergrad. When I was applying to grad school and the majors that align more with QE, I learned about industrial engineering at LSU.”
Pun chose to attend LSU to earn his master’s in industrial engineering after hearing about the variety of research conducted at LSU while he was in Lake Charles.
“Louisiana always felt like home away from home—the people, the food, and the culture are so reminiscent of back home,” he said. “LSU has always been my top choice for its strong academic programs, faculty expertise, and research opportunities.”
Pun, who graduates this fall, plans to work in the automobile industry as a quality/process engineer.
Like us on Facebook (@lsuengineering) or follow us on Twitter and Instagram (@lsuengineering).
###
Contact: Libby Haydel
Communications Manager
225-578-4840
ehaydel1@lsu.edu
Latest College of Engineering News
- LSU ChE, SJA Students Study Breast Cancer in 3D EnvironmentOctober 24, 2022BATON ROUGE, LA - Though October is recognized nationally as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, LSU faculty and students are working every month to help combat the potentially fatal disease that has been projected to affect nearly 340,000 Americans this year.
- Testing Backdate
- LSU Researchers Create Low-Cost Method to Recycle PlasticBATON ROUGE – LSU researchers have created a new, low-cost way to break down plastic, a potential breakthrough that could save billions of dollars and eliminate billions of tons of plastic pollution.
- CEE's Mohammad Appointed to Editorship of ASCE PublicationBATON ROUGE, LA - LSU Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Louay Mohammad has been selected to serve as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering (JMCE), a publication of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
- LSU Construction Management Professor Developing Occupant-Centric Energy Management SystemBATON ROUGE, LA - Thermostat wars are not just limited to the home; they are also common in office environments and can result in negative outcomes like adversely affecting worker productivity and driving up energy costs unnecessarily.
- LSU Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Develops Software to Protect Offshore WindfarmsIn July 2023, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced that it would hold the first-ever offshore wind energy lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, renewable energy companies have expressed interest in wind farming, with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalizing four Wind Energy Areas that could produce enough clean, renewable energy to power more than 3 million homes. However, with this rapid growth comes challenges, such as protecting these wind farms from hurricanes.