Isha Ela Chinniah '24

Major: Biology
Minor: Computer Science
Nexus: Data Science

Research In Ecology: Studying The Effects of Anthropogenic Activities on Ground Beetle Diversity

This summer I attended the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program and caught a glimpse of working in the field of Ecology. I was part of a larger project examining the factors that affected competition between ground beetle species for common resources, and I chose to explore how human activities influenced these ecological processes. Through this 3 month long program, I accumulated background knowledge in the field of ecology, measured the sizes of ground beetles, developed skills in QGIS and RStudio to perform analyses, and wrote research proposals and abstracts to deepen my understanding of the project. Despite being an incredible learning experience, I was only able to scratch the surface of this project; as part of this panel, I will describe my expectations, experiences, and take-aways from being a short-term research assistant contributing to a long term ecological research project.

Alli Cwalinski '24

Major: Environmental Studies

Adventures in Bee Observation

I had the opportunity to work as a research assistant for Dr. Gordon Fitch, a NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts who is researching how bees may alter their foraging behaviors as a result of parasitic infection. More specifically, we looked at interactions between bumble bees, the parasite Crithidia bombi, and the common wildflower wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). This internship aligned with my goals as it offered training within a lab in addition to field work. I will be discussing my experience as a non-traditional aged student (Frances Perkins Scholar) doing an internship, what I learned about the process of scientific research, and how it helped give me more confidence moving forward in my academic career.

Emma Doyle '23

Major: Biology

Bones to Bridges

I spent the month of June with The Historic Belén Bioarchaeology Project 2022, Excavations of Mission Church and Cemetery. This project centered on working with the locals to understand the history and legacy of the Genizaro, Indigenous people forced into servitude and Hispanic culture in the 1700s and 1800s, and examining remains for an understanding of their lifestyle. Field work was laborious and working with the community was rewarding, but I found field work like this wasn't my dream. What does this mean for the future? Through honesty with myself and my mentor, Dr. Pamela Stone, I am continuing to explore my next steps in the context of my experience in the Belén Project and my career. Melding a background in Biology, a fascination with DNA and forensics, and a newfound interest in biological anthropology, I'll speak on how I am developing past expectations into future goals.

Amelia Ducey '24

Major: Geology
Five College Coastal and Marine Science Certificate Candidate

Characterizing Life Patterns of River Herring

During my internship this summer with the Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, we collected and analyzed river herring demographic data with the hopes of using this to create more targeted and effective conservation strategies. Using purse seining, we sampled larval and juvenile river herring in both pond and estuary environments. Back at the lab, we extracted tiny ear bones called otoliths from the fish. After a significant amount of processing, we imaged the otoliths and were able to determine the age of the specimens based on the number of rings observed on each otolith. This presentation will be split between explaining some content from the project and sharing my personal experiences as a low income student working through an internship.

Teah Shi
Major: Psychology and Data Science

One Thing to Take Away From the Past Summer: To Be a Self-Regulated Learner

This summer, I worked on-campus to develop an analytic approach to encode music in collaboration with Citations: The Renaissance Imitation Mass (CRIM) Project. The focal point of my work was using Dynamic Time Warping (a computational algorithm for measuring the similarity between two temporal sequences) to cluster melodic intervals, followed by examining whether the computer-generated results were aligned with the human-expert analysis. In this presentation, I will highlight an indispensable skill for all of us to develop, thereby serving as a building block in constructing not only a meaningful research experience, but every single process of learning in the future.