Department of Mathematics - Recent Summer Experiences

Haiyang

Summer Volunteer at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Involved in a NOAA funded research project "Predicting Impacts of Stressors at the Land-Water Interface". My role was to help a scientist to develop a statistical model of evaluating effects of coastal watershed characteristics on shallow water quality and submerged aquatic vegetation. My tasks included data assembling, data analyses using advanced Microsoft Excel (e.g., Macro, Pivot, etc.) and simple statistics methods, results outputs using graphs and tables. Return to Top

Andrew

This summer I worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. A description of my project is that I used computational modeling to investigate how varying mechanical properties of a modeled face, such as skin, elasticity, thickness, and compressibility, can increase accuracy of a model allowing researchers to identify areas of low and high contact pressure. Return to Top

Amir

I got a software development job with General Dynamics and have spent the last 6 months in Baghdad, Iraq, doing semi-advanced worked in vision programming for the US Army. Those MATLAB classes really helped! Return to Top

Jeff

Here is a summary of my summer REU experience at University of Illinois: I wrote for the QUEST newsletteI spent my summer doing research in applied neuroscience with the Brain-Computer Interfaces group at University of Illinois. My research group worked on developing computer interfaces and utilizing signal processing to give disabled people without the use of their limbs the ability to type on a computer. We used an electrode cap (as shown in my picture) to measure a subject's brain signals and display a keyboard on the screen with various letters flashing on it - when the letter the person wants to type flashes they are supposed to count in their head, thus releasing a specific brain signal (called a P300 signal) which we monitor for and enter the letter on screen once it is detected. I worked on optimizing the signal processing code in order to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the real-time processing of brain waves - it was definitely one of the most stimulating things I've spent a whole summer doing! Return to Top

Eric

I participated in an internship this past summer with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. I worked in the National Information Center, which is the central repository for all of the economic and regulatory information regarding the Board's activities. Specifically, I created an application and database to collect and analyze test data for their various tables. Return to Top

Albert

Hello my name is Albert. I am currently a freshman at the University of Maryland. I am currently a math major, though later I will most likely be studying both math and computer science as a double major. Over the past summer I worked here on campus as an intern over in the A.V. Williams building, working on the I-series course The Rise of the Machines, testing out the class, as well as studying basic JAVA programming. Interning over the summer really is a great opportunity for all people, no matter if you are an incoming freshmen or a rising senior, it can sometimes be a lot of work but it really pays of because of all the things you learn as well as all the people you meet (not to mention the pay checks). If I could I would recommend summer internships to all incoming freshmen, simply to get them involved ASAP. Return to Top

Lukas

I worked in the NeuroTheory (computational neuroscience) lab on aproject investigating a possible functional role of tiny eye movements in early visual processing.Is there a way I can tell whether a math course I took (or plan to take) has been evaluated by the math department? Return to Top

John

I did applied mathematics / numerical relativity research with Dr. Manuel Tiglio from the physics department. We analyzed the phase space of binary black hole systems with different initial configurations. We have published one article on this work, and we are working on a second one. I also presented some combinatorial optimization research with Dr. Bruce Golden from the business school at a conference in Hamburg, Germany. Return to Top

Rachel

I participated in the number theory REU at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I worked in a team of 4 undergraduates to generalize a previous connection between a particular birth-death process and a particular q-continued fraction to a larger family of birth-death processes and q-continued fractions. We then found in this family q-continued fractions corresponding to modular forms and used known identities between these modular forms to find new identities between birth-death processes.Return to Top

Azharul

I went to CERN this summer, part of my part time job at the Cosmic Ray Physics Group to calibrate a calorimeter which we built for NASA's 2009 Balloon Flight. We used one of the LHC beam line for our project. My job was to monitor and record data during the beam test. More info: www.cosmicray.umd.edu/cream. Return to Top

Lucas

I participated in an internship at Rutgers University, specifically the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM), where I worked for Dr. Arnold. There I helped to program an online database for the lab members to upload datasets for their crystallography experiments. I was also in a program called CABM Summer Scholars where I got an opportunity to present my research to other interns and members of the lab. It was such a special experience for me because I not only got to learn two programming languages (MySql and HTML), but also got to work under a very approachable lab members, which really created a feeling like I was part of a team. It was an amazing experience. Return to Top

Joseph

I went to Paris, France and worked on an applied math project modeling vesicles in a presynaptic neuron at Ecole Normal Superiuere. Return to Top

Kaitlyn

This summer I did an REU at Cornell University. I worked with Dr. Strichartz doing analysis on fractals. There were six of us in the fractals group, but we worked on individual research projects. In the first part we learned about fractals like the Sierpinski Gasket, and how to define functions on them and do calculus on those functions. Then I did research to find and compute orthogonal polynomials on the Sierpinski Gasket. I would highly recommend this REU, especially with Dr. Strichartz as an adviser. Return to Top

Samantha

I spent my summer interning at the Census Bureau anaylzing and reporting on the comparison of American Community Survey (ACS) language needs to language resources. The study determined, for the telephone and personal visit stages of the ACS, the estimated workloads by language spoken (based on data collected in the survey) and compared that with data on the available language skill sets (resources) in the call centers and in each of the regional offices. The summary identified areas of potential recruiting needs. Additionally, I embraced the opportunity to network with staff from all divisions within the Bureau and attended their private career fair for summer interns to learn more about different positions that I might like there. It was extremely fortunate that I assigned to the particular intern job I had because I really enjoyed the nature of the project and the work environment. I am now working at the Census Bureau part-time and will continue there after graduation in May. Return to Top

Henry

This summer, I had an internship at the Institute for Advanced Study/Park City Mathematics Institute. It is a 3-week program at which you learn advanced (but still undergraduate-level) number theory. The entire camp is about the relationship between modular curves, modular forms, elliptic curves, and the Riemann zeta function. You take 2 classes - effectively, applied and theoretical. The applied class is somewhat low-level, but the theoretical class is a very good class - it includes a decent amount of abstract algebra and complex analysis. The camp is in a beautiful place - Park City, which is right next to Salt Lake City. On the weekends there are trips to nearby (and not-so-nearby) places, such as SLC itself, and Zion National Park. Plenty of opportunities to have fun, to learn, and lots of other good math people there. I recommend everyone try to go there. Return to Top

Robert

I worked in the Image Processing branch at the U.S. Army Research Lab. My research there focused mainly on what is known as color filter array (CFA) demosaicing. The basic idea is that when a digital color image is captured, information for each of at least 3 primary colors must be sampled at each pixel. However, while three sensors, one for each color, seems like a natural idea, it is mechanically nontrivial to align them perfectly. Moreover, this sensor usually account for at least half of the camera's cost, so having a camera with three sensors would be more expensive. Thus a full color image must be captured with a single sensor. To do this, a color filter array is used, which filters out all but one color at each pixel. The typical color filter array, known as the Bayer pattern, samples data in this repeating pattern: RGR, GBG, RGR. From here, this raw data is demosaiced, wherein all missing color information is interpolated from the mosaic-patterned raw data. My research this summer focused on the many different ways an image can be demosaiced, as well as the techniques for assessing the relative quality of the reproduced images. In particular, I proposed two new quality assessment algorithms which can be performed without a reference image. Return to Top

Mary

I did an internship this summer at: Food and Drug Administration, Office of Regulatory Affairs, Department of Planning, Evaluation, and Management. In my internship, I have run queries on the FDA database to compute statistical data regarding accomplishment data for the agency, so that they can track how resources are being used. This also included using Excel to make graphs and sort the data. Return to Top