Ethan Olvera is a 20-year-old young man who recently transferred from NIU and is now chasing his degree in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2025, he worked at the 71 North Partnership Studio as an undergraduate researcher, where he worked on virtual production (VP) and became an outstanding student leader.
Like many studio members, his interest in technology began at a young age. His father was interested in computers, so he always had them in his environment, but his passion really took hold when he entered middle school. Growing up in an impoverished area of Texas, his school received grants for computer science education, and he took full advantage of them. In his words, “I had a really good comp sci teacher in middle school, that’s probably why I went into this field.” The teacher, Mr. Rivera, gave his class weekly coding puzzles and also oversaw the robotics and coding teams in competitions across the state.
Olvera fondly remembers engaging in a state competition with his team (sponsored by the grant and Mr. Rivera) where they had to build a tower defense game. He learned the basics of code with Code.org’s playground function, but since he was in middle school, he didn’t know the ins and outs of coding quite yet, and almost crashed the website.
“I think I hit over 2,000 lines of code!” Olvera exclaimed proudly.
Similarly, Olvera recalled a time when he participated in a statewide coding competition.
“I remember being like, ‘I wanna win this,’” he stated.
The competition required participants to complete challenges centered on coding, and the more people who participated, the more points their team would get. In a stunning upset, Olvera was the first person in the state of Texas to complete all of the challenges.
Ethan Olvera moved from Texas to Illinois after middle school. He’d lost his friends, his teacher, and his community, so he didn’t do much coding in high school. Instead, he used those years to build himself and his social circle back up. He participated in choir and band, becoming a bass singer and Solo and Ensemble competitor, as well as a percussionist, trumpeter for jazz band, and drum major for marching band. He grew his social skills and became an excellent public speaker.
After graduating, he came to NIU as an Honors student. At the Honors retreat, he met Federico Bassetti, who would eventually offer him a job at the 71 North Partnership Studio. As fate would have it, Bassetti was assigned to be his team supervisor for the Honors retreat games. The games are a series of competitions like gaga ball and foursquare, and Olvera, with his competitive yet collaborative spirit, won each and every one, making him and his team the 2025 champions.
During his time at the studio, he won second place overall at CURE, an undergraduate research symposium, and first place in the Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Computational Sciences category. It is one of his most memorable accomplishments from this period, but his number one pick might come as a surprise. He remembers struggling through hours and hours of issues with his headset systems, which he explained in a diagram (pictured below) showing the complex links between each piece of software, but finally figured out the solution, which was a simple switch from one program to another.
Olvera described the project by comparing it to The Mandalorian, a popular Star Wars TV series. The creators of The Mandalorian made the settings look realistic by creating a small, realistic area for the actor to work on, and then surrounded that area with a dome of high definition screens in order to create a 3D effect. With this technique, the actor could remain in the center of the set while cameras tracked their movement and screens adapted to their output, making the area look like another planet in a galaxy far, far away.
“What most people use VP for is like, in movies when they wanna do a pre-production shot before they use CGI… that’s kinda like the purpose of it. If you’ve ever watched sports and, like, they’re in the studio and the graphic comes out of the floor, that’s VP in play,” Olvera explained.
“We’re trying to replicate that, just at a fraction of the cost,” Ethan Olvera said when describing his project. Instead of using wraparound LED screens, he used a green screen and several cameras with high-intensity lasers for precise movement tracking.
In explaining his work, he noted that “Virtual production is a very, very, very large umbrella underneath an umbrella.” The big umbrella is extended reality, or XR. Underneath that would be VP, or virtual production. The three main parts of XR are as follows:
Virtual Reality (VR): VR puts you inside a digital world using a headset, entirely blocking out the real world.
Augmented Reality (AR): AR keeps you in the real world, but puts a transparent layer of digital data or images over your view.
Mixed Reality (MR): MR blends both worlds so that physical and digital objects exist together and can interact in real time.
Ethan Olvera led the development of 71 North’s virtual production studio, supporting XR research and immersive storytelling initiatives by building LIV.tv workflows, utilizing Unreal Engine, and working with faculty and technical staff to research and implement VP and XR technologies. As a student fellow for the Honors Program, he advised Honors students, mentored a cohort of thirty first-year Honors students, and led Honors events as their representative. He recently completed an internship where he worked with a Chicago-based professor to test Kubernetes, an open-source system that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Take it from us at the studio, computer science is hard work. When Olvera was asked why he’s so drawn to it, he responded:
"The way my brain works is a lot like a computer, so it's really easy for me to put my thoughts into code and like, write programs. But the really alluring factor... the thing that draws me the most is that you can really do anything. You just need to know how to describe it. That's the way I look at it. It's not even bound by reality, or like, space and time. Whatever you can describe, you can build."
Olvera’s passion for the field didn’t go unnoticed by his peers. They talk about him with fondness, describing him as having “Luffy vibes.” For those who haven’t seen One Piece, Luffy (pronounced loo-fee) is the main character of the show, leading his colorful crew across the world in search of the mythical One Piece, with the goal of becoming King of the Pirates. He is portrayed as a carefree, happy-go-lucky character who often thinks with his stomach and shows a great deal of kindness to those in need.
“He has a very calm, stoic vibe to him…” Adam Bougher said when asked about his personality.
“…until he starts talking,” Jerry Stamos interjected, “then he gets super enthusiastic!”
Bougher recalled how he restarted the Huskie Hackers and got them into Hackathons, as well as his work in organizing a memorial for a computer science professor who passed away. With a smile, he stated, “I hope his journey continues smoothly.”
Beside him, Stamos added, “He’s gonna be continuing those Hackathons at UIC, so I’m hoping we can compete at some point.”
Federico Bassetti, his former overseer, wrote this when describing Olvera:
I first met Ethan Olvera during the Northern Illinois University Honors First-Year Camp. I was serving as one of the faculty mentors, and Ethan was one of the Honors Fellows helping guide the incoming students through the experience.
Even during those first interactions, it was easy to see his curiosity, initiative, and genuine interest in helping others succeed. One of Ethan’s greatest strengths isn’t just his technical ability, it’s his remarkable talent for connecting people. Wherever he goes, he has a way of bringing together individuals with different backgrounds, helping them discover shared interests, and inspiring them to build something bigger than themselves.
With minimal guidance, Ethan laid the groundwork for what would become one of the studio’s newest areas of exploration. He saw the potential in combining real-time graphics, filmmaking, immersive technology, and storytelling, and he helped transform an idea into a growing community of students eager to learn together.
What makes Ethan exceptional is that he measures success differently. He isn’t focused on being the smartest person in the room or receiving recognition for his own accomplishments. Instead, he invests in the people around him. He encourages others to participate, helps newcomers feel welcome, and creates opportunities for teammates to discover strengths they didn’t know they had.
Other peers note his curiosity, initiative, and genuine interest in helping others succeed. They saw how hard he worked and were happy to see him build a community within the studio and at NIU.
In five, ten, and twenty years, Olvera sees his future in virtual production. He’s open to building a business, but noted that the field of extended reality (XR) is already so full of players that it’s hard to do anything unique. He’s hoping to continue with amateur XR and eventually help others with their virtual worlds. He’d also like to go see Europe, but beyond that, he hasn’t filled out his bucket list quite yet.
We asked him for a fun fact, and he replied, “I’m Hispanic, I think. I bet you can’t tell, from the color of my skin. Everyone from where I grew up is Hispanic.” He added, “I play three instruments: piano, trumpet, and percussion. Oh, wait. I guess, four. I picked up violin during COVID ‘cause I was bored.”
Olvera’s go-to way to unwind is to play video games, specifically first-person shooter (FPS) games. He also enjoys adventure, grand strategy, and civilization-building games. He’s recently been exploring MOBAs, a subgenre of video games where two teams of players (usually five-versus-five) compete on a symmetrical map. Each player controls a single powerful character with unique abilities, and the main goal is to destroy the enemy team’s core base. Some of his noted favorites are Elven Ring and Balatro.
Alongside video games, he also enjoys board games, but not the typical ones like Monopoly and Catan - we’re talking about board games that require multiple tables and chairs to play properly. For example, he plays Axis and Allies, which takes up six feet of table space (shown below), as well as Twilight Imperium, which takes up about three feet, not counting the extra pieces.
“Imagine Risk on steroids,” Olvera explained. “It takes anywhere between ten to twenty hours. I have foldable plastic tables at home to fit the boards.”
Clearly, Olvera’s infectious passion and drive are taking him places. Thanks to his time in the 71 North Partnership Studio, he now understands the setup and techniques needed for virtual production. He’s grateful for his time at 71 North, at NIU, and is looking forward to what lies ahead.
