Degree program: B.S. in Computational Mathematics, Physics Concentration
Minors: Psychology and Applied Meteorology
Year: Class of 2019
How has undergraduate research impacted your life?
My research has altered my life and career indefinitely. I was not only able to form close relationships with the faculty of the Mathematics Department, as well as with my peers in the project, but I also gained valuable first-hand knowledge of an entire field of mathematics and computer science that ERAU rarely sets foot in: data science. Although my degree is an applied science, my coursework still dealt with heavily abstract concepts, but through my data science project, I had the ability to merge my programming and mathematical skills in a way that boosted my creativity in analysis and statistics in particular, and also gave me the opportunity to participate in conferences and publish my research. Once the ball was rolling and I took the leap of faith to dive headfirst into a project I knew little about, I got engrossed in the project due to its application to the real world. I saw how directly I could have an impact in a humanitarian way, and the project ate up all of my free time, especially during my last semester. I really fine-tuned a number of skills in the eight months before my graduation while working on this project, not only in programming and statistical inference, but also in communication of results. Nevertheless, the ultimate benefit of this project was to see how powerful mathematics paired with programming was, and recognize how I can build a career out of the skills I developed.
What does research mean to you?
To me, research takes on a number of different forms and I worry that incoming students underestimate their capability to do research at ERAU. Research has varying intensities and expectations. All it takes is to find an intriguing problem or field and ask around for a faculty member who may have a project in the works in that area. It is far too easy to get the impression that research must reap some grand result or discovery in order to be considered valid, especially at a university at the heart of the aerospace industry. In reality, any field or problem that you find yourself passionate about can make a fantastic research project as long as you show drive and are willing to put forth the effort. The bulk of my results were found in the last few months of my eight month research endeavor; the first few months I had very little to show. Choose a project or form your own that you are passionate about to consistently and steadily make progress, and you will be very proud of your results. The faculty was very supportive and even gave me access to the CRAY supercomputer in the engineering complex for my research. I was pleasantly surprised at ERAU's support for undergraduate research and wholeheartedly recommend all students to get involved in some way.
Describe some of the projects you have worked on.
My capstone project at ERAU was in coordination with a local child welfare services company in Gainesville, Florida. They had reached out to ERAU requesting statistical analysis on their records of children in the foster care system, but no undergraduate researchers had the proper background to tackle the problem as a whole. In addition to this, the data was complicated and lengthy; eight full years of data were shared with ERAU including about 40,000 children's cases. The foster care system in Florida is complex and, at times, discombobulated. Every child, parent, and relative has a different experience within the foster care system, and it becomes increasingly difficult for child welfare professionals to recommend a course of action to set the child's life in a better path. This was ultimately, what I was trying to improve. I worked with the company to understand what they were looking for in their records, and then leveraged the proper statistical analysis and data mining tools to program algorithms that gave them the results that they were after. It took some ingenuity and research to make this happen, but I am very happy with the results and the fact that I could make a difference.