Successful UA Exchange Program Gets a Reboot

TUSCALOOSA — Fifteen first-year students at The University of Alabama are the first cohort of the Alabama-Esslingen-Mercedes Exchange, a continuation of a long-running exchange program in automotive engineering.

The AEMX program for Global Leaders is a cooperative effort between UA, the German university Hochschule Esslingen and Mercedes-Benz US International.

Building on Proven Success

For a decade, the original program, called Two Steps Ahead, positioned participants for top automotive engineering and research jobs. AEMX will build on that success for UA students.

“Our students are now among the most attractive for employment in the automotive industry,” said Dr. Bharat Balasubramanian, executive director of the Center for Advanced Vehicle Technologies.

Balasubramanian is one of the architects of the exchange program with Markus Schaefer, President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz US International at the time, and Dr. Christof Wolfmaier from Hochschule Esslingen, or HSE.

John Dollar, a component design engineer, was in the first cohort of Two Steps Ahead and is one of several program alumni employed at MBUSI.

“The AMEX program is a unique partnership between academia and industry that can help jumpstart a career and will give students a major leg up on their classmates,” Dollar said.

An Engineering and Humanities Collab

The AEMX students gain unforgettable cultural experiences alongside opportunities for international study, internships and jobs in the Alabama automotive industry.

The thing that makes the program unique is a requirement to learn German alongside their engineering studies. After an immersive German language summer course, they will take an automotive engineering course taught in German on the UA campus. Students also complete a year abroad, including an internship in the German automotive industry.

The multilingual engineers who graduate already familiar with German research and design methodology have a clear advantage over other American graduates.

Joseph Lulka, now an MBUSI buildability engineer, said the challenge of studying and working in another language gave him the ability to adapt to new, unpredictable environments. It also gave him an edge in an international workplace.

“It made me a cultural interpreter at work, where I can serve as a middleman to overcome misunderstandings when solving problems together with Germans and Americans,” Lulka said.

J.P. Smith, local project coordinator at MBUSI, said language and cultural immersion were as important as the engineering studies.

“Becoming fluent in the German language, especially when paired with cultural immersion where I took engineering courses and worked as an intern at Mercedes-Benz in German, has set me apart as an engineer at Mercedes-Benz,” Smith said. “It opened the door to possibilities in this company and in my career that I could never have imagined were possible.”

“What’s great about this program is that there’s nothing like it in the world,” said Matthew Feminella, the AEMX language coordinator. “A program that trains students in an engineering field as well as the German language through internships at companies like Mercedes-Benz gives them such a unique skill set that really there are no competitors.”

The New Cohort

Ryan McKenzie is a UA freshman in the first AEMX cohort of fifteen students. He applied to the program because of the versatile experience it promised, and he is already seeing the benefits.

“The most surprising thing has been the sheer number of connections that I’ve been able to make,” he said. “I’ve developed relationships with professors at the top of their fields, accomplished engineers in industry and students with ambitious goals and dreams.”

The AEMX program is challenging, and McKenzie initially worried that an automotive engineering degree would feel too narrow. He has found more doors opened than closed.

“The rigorous academic standards initially made me nervous,” he said. “But they ultimately helped me grow in ways I hadn’t expected.”

In December of 2025, President Dr. Peter J. Mohler from The University of Alabama, Federico Kochlowski, CEO of MBUSI, and President Professor Christof Wolfmaier representing HSE signed an international MOU formalizing the three institutions’ participation in the program.

Students were invited to apply from the program based on academic merit. All of the accepted students are Presidential or National Merit Scholars.

“This is an excellent group of students,” Balasubramanian said. “They are passionate about what they want to do, and it shows.” 

Students in the AEMX Program Cohort One

Owen Bell

Ryan Borchelt

Cameron Dickhut

Caelan Dunlea

Sam Engellant

Zach Feldkamp

Thomas Gallagher

Ben Gilkerson

Samantha Hatcher

Ben Keoshkerian

Dominic Lang

Ryan McKenzie

Alexander Rose

Cole Storch

Stella Watkins