Virtual Production Technical Artist Fellow
Fall 2026 Student Fellowship Program

Center for Academic Innovation

Deadline to apply: Ongoing; first consideration will be given to those who apply by Sunday, September 6, 2026. (This posting may close earlier if a high volume of applications is received.)

Application Link: https://myumi.ch/RQ3P2 

Location: 317 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (75% weekly in-person fellowship experience)

Pay Rate: Undergraduate $17/hr, Master’s $20/hr, Doctoral $23/hr

Job Duration: 10 - 15 hours/week for the fall 2026 semester, with the possibility of extending the fellowship

Supervisor: Eric Schreffler (eschreff@umich.edu)

Who we’re looking for:

The Center for Academic Innovation's EdTech Accelerator team is seeking a creative and technically skilled student with a strong foundation in 3D content creation and Unreal Engine to join our virtual production fellow team. In this role, you'll help design and build the digital assets, environments, and real-time systems that power a series of short-form video projects produced on our LED volume.

This position is ideal for someone who lives at the intersection of art and engineering; comfortable modeling and texturing in a DCC tool, confident in Unreal, and eager to learn cutting-edge virtual production techniques including in-camera VFX, camera tracking, and media server workflows. You'll work closely alongside the XR Production Fellow, Video Technician Fellow, and Media Design Fellow as a true production team: scoping small projects together, sharing responsibilities across pre-production, on-stage operation, and post, and encouraged to stretch beyond your primary role to learn new skills.

What You’ll Do: 

As the Virtual Production Technical Artist Fellow, you'll have the opportunity to:

• Build Unreal Engine scenes and environments for use on the Studio X LED volume, including lighting, shaders and materials, and Sequencer setups
• Create 3D content — models, textures, and Gaussian splats — using your preferred DCC pipeline (Blender, Maya, Houdini, Cinema 4D, etc.)
• Operate Disguise and RenderStream during production sessions, driving real-time content to the LED wall in sync with camera tracking data
• Optimize scenes for real-time performance, applying framerate targets, Nanite/Lumen, and other Unreal 5 features
• Collaborate with the other three student fellows across the full production pipeline — scoping, planning, designing, shooting, and finishing a series of 3–5 short video projects (=2 minutes each), where each project is designed to exercise a different aspect of the virtual production toolset and provide space to experiment and fail safely
• Contribute to post-production tasks alongside the Media Design Fellow (compositing, cleanup, finishing) as projects require
• Document workflows and lessons learned to support future fellows and the broader Studio X team
• Regularly participate in Student Fellowship Program (SFP) events, professional development sessions, workshops, and community-building activities.

How to apply:

To apply, please complete the Student Fellowship Application and upload your resume with the following supplemental documents:

• Brief Cover Letter
  • Optional: Link to an electronic Portfolio, sample scene, breakdowns or demo to your cover letter

Student Qualifications:

• Current student at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor campus (any level, undergraduate through doctoral)
• Proficiency in at least one digital content creation (DCC) tool — Blender, Maya, Houdini, Cinema 4D, or equivalent
• Intermediate Unreal Engine experience, including Sequencer, Take Recorder, Movie Render Queue, shaders and materials, Blueprints, and familiarity with framerate optimization techniques
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively as part of a small production team
• Willingness to learn new tools and workflows on the job, and to experiment with unfamiliar techniques