Math/Topology Research

For my STEP signature project, I worked with a math faculty member to investigate similarities between topological spaces. I spent a lot of the time coding to prove lower and upper bounds and search for patterns in data. I also met with my faculty mentor periodically to discuss findings and brainstorm new ways of asking questions.

One of the biggest things that I learned while doing my project is that research is hard. Being good at solving problems in class is completely different from being able to do effective research. I had to learn how to give up on a problem and move to a different sub-problem. Initially, I thought of the goal of research as trying to solve a specific problem, but as I proceeded I realized that the only way that you can really proceed is by trying to solve problems kind of related to what you really want – in the end, the thing you really want may be impossible, or uninteresting, so you need to be willing to explore. In completing this project I learned that the trick is to ask the right questions, and began getting a taste of what research feels like.

Another thing that I learned was that communication is absolutely essential to a successful research project. Trying to fight against a problem on your own is suicide, having someone else’s perspective can really help to clarify a problem. Besides the potential to help other people, communication is really important to not repeating the same work others do. Finally, talking with other people is much more enjoyable than trying to work on your own to solve problems.

I learned the things I learned only through bitter failure. I wasted a lot of time trying to improve the speed of some code to get better lower and upper bounds on a constant and run that code in parallel etcetera. It didn’t take me too much time to realize that the bounds were not going to get much better without a very new technique, but I never thought of a super cool technique, and altogether spent too much time trying to get insignificant improvements. Here is where I banged my head against the wall, and the two main reasons for this foolishness were my lack of experience and my lack of communication of my struggles.

Here is a concrete example of why you need to be able to communicate. I realized that I would not be able to progress much further but did not sufficiently explain my worries. After all, I am just a mere undergraduate and the faculty advisor things that running the code in parallel would lead to big improvements. But it is so important to be able to listen to yourself and make a case, rather than just beat yourself up about being dumb and unable to make said improvements. Honestly my biggest regret was not being able to talk with people very much during this time, I was busy with some other things and so were they, so we didn’t meet up very often or for very long ):.

On the other hand, the meetings were always a good experience, working together and hearing other ideas always made me feel confident that I would be able to do something productive afterwards. This also features the only pictures I took during research, here you can see my faculty advisor explaining some math to me and his stack of books.

 

The things that I learned from my research help me see how much I still have to learn and inspired me to study more research papers as an undergrad. I got a taste of research and it has made me want to be very prepared for grad school, and learn how I should prepare. This research experience has helped me learn how I need to grow as a person and a scholar. This experience has also given me insight into potential career paths and given me experience with communicating effectively, which is absolutely essential for research, internships, or practically anything that you could want to do in your life.

Biophysical Society Annual Meeting

My project was an undergraduate research project. I performed research on some calcium binding proteins in muscle during the academic year, and then presented this research at the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Diego. I attended this conference and listened in on the various talks and posters in addition to presenting my poster.

At the conference, I learned a lot about the scientific community and the collaboration that goes on between scientists. Building off this, I learned how I can fit into this community and the steps I need to take to succeed in the field. I found out that it is very easy to establish collaborations and that most scientists love to talk about their work. Very rarely is there a scientist who is private with their data, because it now takes a lot of different experiments to build a complete story, which is unlikely to all come from one lab. For me personally, I found that I just need to offer help to others, no matter how big or small. As a result of this, my name can get thrown around the field, whether in the form of an acknowledgement or a specific reference. All this new information has made me very optimistic about my future career and I am more confident about the next steps that I need to take.

The poster sessions were especially insightful into the collaboration that I look forward to in the future. 500 posters in one huge room, thousands of people talking about the data, experimental procedures, and theory. Even as an undergraduate, I talked to 10-12 people during the one hour that my poster presentation was for, including a very prominent scientist in the field as the very first person I talked to. Also, the variety of people that I talked to was astounding, ranging from graduate students to principal investigators from other universities, and each individual talked to me about some different aspect of my poster. Switching to people that I talked to at the poster sessions, I mostly followed my lab coworkers around and listened in on their conversations, but one of the people I talked to was a fellow of the society, and I barely had to talk much to him before he asked for my email and began talking to me about working for him as a graduate student. That portrays the simplicity of the networking opportunities I had at this conference, and the collaboration was evident in more than just the poster sessions.

Even when attending and listening to the many talks that were given throughout the conference, I noticed that I never saw one presentation completed solely by the work of one person. At the end of every presentation the presenter acknowledged many people, usually 5-10. Something else that I noticed along these lines was that during the presentation, it was customary for the presenter to put the name of the scientist that collected the data on the slide. This allowed the audience to give credit where it was deserved and gave me the opportunity to see how many people contribute to one scientific story. Yes, there were some presentations that were full of data collected by only one person, but most of the presentations had anywhere from 3-10 people contributing data, not including all those acknowledged at the end. Again, this gave me confidence and encouragement for my future career as a scientist, giving me the impression that it is not difficult to make myself known to others or for them to see the work that I may have completed.

In addition to the experiences that I had at the conference, the collaboration in the field became evident to me as I was doing my research in the months leading up to the meeting. I was given the opportunity by my principal investigator to help a graduate student at the University of Arizona use a software program for biochemical modeling that I am familiar with through my research. This student then gave a talk at the conference, and he acknowledged me at the end of his talk. He also came up and talked to me at my poster a few days later. This is the only collaboration that I have been a part of, but being in the lab before the conference I learned about all of the collaboration that other lab members take part in. Almost all of the major projects that my principal investigator is involved in are shared with other investigators, some at Ohio State as well and some at other universities. Hence, even before the conference began, I saw the importance of networking and collaboration in my own lab.

This knowledge development is significant for me because it gives me insights to what my next steps should be in order to advance in my career of interest. I also learned how the scientific community works and what is emphasized in the field, which I can use to my advantage during interviews and such where I must advertise myself to potential graduate schools or employers. Knowing that collaboration is important and working with others is practically an absolute must, I can take steps to ensure that I do collaborate and work with others when it comes to the work that I am doing, an when I talk to graduate schools I know that I should emphasize the work that I have done with other people in addition to the work that I have done myself. This conference was extraordinarily beneficial to me, and I now also know how to make the most of it if and when I attend again.