Interns at ATHENA (Summer 2026)
In July 2026, the ATHENA Christian Doppler Laboratory hosted four interns working on the following topics:
- Leon Kordasch – Holography
- Daniel Glantschnig – Automated Wind Turbine Damage Detection
- Gabriel Puri – Adaptive Streaming for Immersive Media
At the end of their internships, the interns presented their projects and findings and received official university certificates in recognition of their work. The experience proved valuable for both the interns and the ATHENA research team alike. Through personalized mentorship, hands-on training, and continuous support, the interns were able to develop strong practical skills while gaining a deeper understanding of research methodologies and technologies in the video streaming domain. We warmly thank the interns for their enthusiasm, dedication, and thoughtful feedback, which made a meaningful contribution to the ongoing work of the ATHENA lab.
Leon Kordasch: “During my internship, I worked on digital holography. I explored state-of-the-art solutions, analyzed their performance and gained lots of theoretical knowledge and technical experience. While challenging, the internship was very rewarding. My supervisor, Ayman Alkhateeb, provided guidance where needed, and collaborating with a diverse, international team made the experience both enriching and enjoyable.”
Daniel Glantschnig: “My time as an intern was both interesting and rewarding. I had the opportunity to train object detection models using datasets with and without synthetic data, then compare the results to explore how synthetic data influenced model performance. Working on this project helped me gain a much better understanding of dataset preparation, model training, evaluation, and the impact that different types of data can have on object detection systems. One of the highlights of the internship was the welcoming and friendly team, which made the experience even more enjoyable. I also greatly appreciated the support of my supervisor from the DORBINE project, Mario, who was always available to answer my questions and help me work through any challenges. The internship allowed me to apply my existing knowledge in a practical environment while developing new technical skills. Overall, I am very grateful for the opportunity, the guidance I received, and the valuable experience I gained during my time there.”
Gabriel Puri: “Over the past four weeks as an intern, I’ve had a wonderful experience. I had the opportunity to work on streaming immersive media to the Apple Vision Pro, and I even created a Swift application that streams spatial videos to a local server. This server processes the incoming stream using my integrated pipeline, which enables adaptive bitrate streaming. I’ve learned a lot about encoding and how it’s done in real-world applications such as Netflix streams. I’ve also learned through trial and error, for example by trying an approach and failing, but eventually succeeding. I also learned how to accurately grade video quality via AVQT. One of the most memorable aspects of the internship was undoubtedly the incredibly welcoming and inclusive team, as well as my supervisor and mentor, Kamran from the ATHENA project. He is a true expert in his field and provided me with crucial support. This internship has allowed me to apply my interest in computer science to useful real-world scenarios and gain industry insights. Overall, I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and for all the guidance and support I received throughout the internship.“
