Entries tagged with “research” from College of Sciences

The College’s “Summer Co-ops in Sciences” (SCOOPS) program supported seven students in research positions working in Computer Science, Biology, Marine Sciences, and Physics.

• Erik Castine worked with Prof. Byung Kim (Computer Science) on bioinformatics and genetic analysis.  Working in the Python language, Erik wrote an algorithm to count up the number of times each codon occurs in a specific DNA sequence.

• Michael Stowell and Jeremy Poulin worked with Prof. Fred Martin (Computer Science) on Android mobile phone technologies.  They developed and submitted an entry to the City of Boston's challenge to algorithmically identify pot-holes from data sets collected on Android phones. (They'll find out later this fall whether their entry was selected for a cash prize.)

• Meghan Burke worked with Prof. Michael Graves (Biology) on projects involving eukaryotic green algae. She learned how to dissect freshwater snails in order to isolate a symbiotic ciliate that lives inside the snail, and helped Prof. Graves’ group prepare an algae growth medium and inoculate and maintain the algae cultures.

• Dominic Scarano worked with Prof. Robert Gamache (School of Marine Sciences). He helped create a database of all measured collision-broadened line shape parameters for carbon dioxide. The database will be used to test theoretical calculations, and for the reduction of data from satellite missions, such as GOSAT (The Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite), OCO (Orbiting Carbon Observatory), IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer).

• Joe Beagly and Trevor-Max Smith worked with Gregg Parker (Physics). They worked at the particle accelerator facility, and assisted full-time students on a number of projects, including the Radiation Safety Group, which performed actual sampling and testing.
  

In addition to the professional experience in research labs, students also got to know the University and campus life, and made friends.  As Erik Castine described it, “I made friends here, I met the staff, and I got used to dorm life with my roommates Joe and Trevor. I honestly don’t feel like an incoming freshman any more. I feel like the summer program was basically a semester. I can’t imagine anything that could’ve helped me more than taking this program, and I can’t wait for the school year to start."