Summer Showcase 2023

At GogyUp Inc., I led a project focused on building an advanced chatbot system. This chatbot could talk to people, understand their requests, and even generate reports using complex computer instructions. We made sure it could learn and adapt rapidly, like a super-fast learner! It was like teaching the computer to be exceptionally smart. This experience taught me a lot about the fascinating world of computer intelligence and how we can make technology work even smarter! #TechInnovation #Chatbots

Project funded by: Macalester Summer Internship Grant (MSIG)

The Grossman lab at the University of Minnesota explores soil health management in organic farming systems to increase sustainability. In my summer internship in the lab, I learned about the relationships between plants, microbes, and soil, and how cover crops, timing of fallow periods, and application of specific microbes can be leveraged to improve crop yields, and reduce harmful nutrient run-off. I participated in work on a variety of experiments, with tasks ranging from counting bell peppers in the field, to grinding and weighing soil samples, to conducting chemical analyses of soil samples in the lab.

Project funded by: OlinRice Hub, Beltmann OREL Endowment

I am in Heilongjiang Province, China, attending Global Tiger Day activities hosted by WWF China. I am conducting conservation strategies in the wild, enjoying flexible fieldwork, attending discussion forums and delivering presentations; making changes to the local ecoregion complex.

Project funded by: WWF, China

Agent Epi is a tracking-enabled, temperature controlled, protective case for individuals with allergies who need epinephrine (life saving medication) on them at all times.

Project funded by: MacStartups

It’s a spoken word poem written front my identity as a black American women in a world of many movements. I first began working on this poem in 2020 during the midst of the civil unrest, following the creation of the poem I began to perform it in multiple states and stages, altered to call attention to the different groups in need of awareness, uprising , and solidarity.

This summer, we studied the role of perineuronal nets (PNNs), neuroanatomical structures made of proteins and sugars, in the role of long-term memory in the olfactory bulb of mice. To do this, we are using a virus that degrades the PNNs of the olfactory bulb, along with behavioral tasks for the mice, in order to determine the role the PNNs have in long-term olfactory memory. The summer was spent primarily practicing the skills needed to surgically inject the virus, as well as imaging to ensure that the virus was effective in degrading the PNNs.

Project funded by: Beltmann Summer Research Natural Sciences Stipends, National Science Foundation (NSF)

This summer our team worked collecting and analyzing data as part of a collaborative project with Professor Christine Sierra O’Connell on spatial heterogeneity impacts on soil gas fluxes, such as CO₂ and CH₄, at the US Forest Service Sabana Research Station, located in Luquillo, Puerto Rico. I conducted independent research studying how ecosystem heterogeneity, specifically different characteristics of the soil within the same site, can alter the responses to increased rainfall patterns. I designed and conducted an ecosystem manipulation experiment in which I simulated large rainfall events across a heterogeneous, biodiverse tropical forest plot. I found that greenhouse gas flux rates from soil varied not only based on whether a given plot received an experimental large “rainfall” event, but also on underlying ecosystem heterogeneity. My results suggest that there is a complex web of interactions between extreme climate events, ecosystem responses, and landscape factors. This dynamic interaction involves the nature of climate change as a positive feedback loop, where alterations in ecosystems are not mere isolated events, but rather drivers of further divergence. In addition, I became proficient in collecting gas samples using the LICOR 7810 Analyzer and smart chamber to measure the gas fluxes for both projects. Moreover, we used Soil Flux Pro to retrieve the data, to then analyze it and make visualizations using R-studio. Additionally, we learned various ecological research techniques through our engagement with the TRACE scientists and programs. As part of the experience, our team participated in two major conferences, the Luquillo LTER Annual Meeting and the TRACE Annual Meeting, where I got to learn from a diverse group of scientists that have been working at the Luquillo Experimental Forest, some of whom have developed robust long term data for more than 30 years.

Project funded by: Beltmann Summer Research Natural Sciences Stipends

As part of MNCASA's prevention team, I helped organize a convention of Minnesota-wide professionals to advocate for making comprehensive sex education mandatory. I learned a lot about the in-and-outs of how an NGO is run, and was very excited to be part of MNCASA's legislative efforts.

Project funded by: Macalester Summer Internship Grant (MSIG)

Project Sweetie is an urban gardening non-profit in North Minneapolis. They focus on teaching residents of Minneapolis how to grow their own food and they also distribute the food to the community through a free dinner program at the local community center. Project Sweetie Pie’s work is especially important in North Minneapolis because it is considered a ‘food desert’ by some, meaning healthy food/fresh produce is difficult to access for people in a community, usually because of distance to stores that supply these foods.

Project funded by: Rick-MacNest Climate Justice Internship Program

Graphs are a collection of vertices and edges. Chip-firing games on graphs are played between two players, player one places a positive number of chips on the vertices of the graph, and player two places one negative chip on a vertex. Player one wins the game if they can remove all debt from the graph through a series of chip-firing moves and player two wins if debt cannot be eliminated. The gonality of a graph is the smallest number of chips needed so that player one wins.

Project funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)

This project is a small part of what will be a larger body of work on wealth inequality and afrofuturism in the United States and around the world. It explores historical barriers to black wealth creation, the modern day effects of these barriers and ways forward for black people. I evaluate three places–Rondo in Saint Paul, South Minneapolis and the Storyville area in Louisiana–looking at their histories in local and broad contexts, then look at efforts that have been implemented to improve the condition of black people in these areas.

Project funded by: Macalester College Research Funds

Fandom is a community where fans of media properties discuss and create transformative works. Fans often engage in fandom on Twitter, a social media platform where profiles and posts have strict character limits. To bypass this, fans often link to Carrds: sites created with the free Carrd website-maker, often including information about a fan’s identity and establishing boundaries. We examined a large set of these Carrds, developed a better understanding of the demographics of fandom communities and how fans establish online privacy norms, and discussed these results through a privacy lens.

Project funded by: David Sielaff Summer Research Fund

While working with the University of Colorado Boulder's Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship this summer, I created a digital exhibit exploring the Pearl V. Turner collection. Pearl Turner, an alumna from the University of Colorado Boulder Class of 1904, lived and climbed in Colorado, as well as across the United States, in the early 20th century. This digital exhibit explores and highlights her personal photo album from a 1914 mountaineering trip. The album documents the trip with film photographs and typewritten journal pages describing Pearl’s perspective, experiences, and life. I created the exhibit in collaboration with the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship and CU Boulder's Rare and Distinct Collections department.

Project funded by: Macalester Summer Internship Grant (MSIG)

Agent Epi is a tracking-enabled, temperature controlled, protective case for individuals with allergies who need epinephrine (life saving medication) on them at all times.

Project funded by: MacStartups

My project utilized observational data collected at Ordway Field Station to study how the presence of garlic mustard and its allelopathic suite may be affecting the presence of tree seedlings as Ordway’s forests experience oak decline. Garlic mustard is a non-native herb that does not form associations with mycorrhizal fungi, which tree seedlings are especially reliant on to obtain nutrients from the soil. Garlic mustard releases secondary compounds to inhibit the growth of its competitors through biochemical interactions known as “allelopathy.” The chemicals that garlic mustard uses have been shown to inhibit the growth of mycorrhizal fungi and the formation of mycorrhizal relationships.

Project funded by: Katharine Ordway Field Station

Over the summer, I worked with Friends of the Mississippi River as their Summer Field Ecologist Intern. My job included helping with bird, vegetation and pollinator surveys. I also helped with volunteer events and data entry from our surveys. Additionally, I had my own monarch plot that I surveyed weekly, the data from which I will be submitting to the international Monarch Larvae Monitoring Program. This internship allowed me to learn so much more about prairie health, plant/bird/pollinator species and how impactful the acquisition of data is to protecting our natural spaces.

Project funded by: Friends of the Mississippi River

This summer I was an intern at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts where I worked with two endangered penguin species; the Southern Rockhopper (Eudyptes chrysocome) and the South African penguin (Spheniscus demersus). While interning here I prepared fish for 50+ penguins across both species, led enrichment sessions, learned to feed penguins, informally educated guests about these species, and provided topical treatments to penguins with bumblefoot. The New England Aquarium is accredited by the association of zoos and aquariums, meaning they are dedicated to research, education, and conservation in order to protect the blue planet.

Project funded by: Boston New England Aquarium

Professor Joslenne Peña and I have been working on a research project that focuses on adult learning in computing. Our project is framed around Code for Us, a free coding workshop that we created to center adults ages 35+. We are hosting Code for Us at Macalester as an informal learning opportunity that also strives to include BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals underrepresented in computing. It is our goal to expand the tech community and bring access to computing education to adults in an approachable manner while simultaneously assessing the effectiveness of our teaching strategies.

Project funded by: Mississippi River Watershed Grant

Blocks4All is a block-based programming environment that is accessible for children with visual and/or motor disabilities. It is an iPad application that can be used with the native iOS accessibility software: VoiceOver (a screen reader used by people with visual impairments) and Switch Control (used by people with motor impairments). This summer, we worked on improving the app’s Switch Control compatibility through usability tests and tutorials to allow for greater learnability of Blocks4All. Our group also created an accessible website and a user study to help Blocks4All reach a broader audience.

Project funded by: Young Researchers Endowed Fund in the Sciences

Acenes, or a straight linear sequence of fused benzene rings, have proved useful in various applications, such as semiconductors in organic optoelectronics. However, as the sequence gets longer, the stability of those molecules decreases as the increased aromaticity leads to the LUMO level rising, which makes the molecules oxidizable in air. My research explored stabilizing these molecules by adding ortho-diimides to reduce electron density while retaining acenes’ main electronic properties. The proposed strategy is to synthesize these molecules utilizing a cycloaddition approach.

Project funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF)-Cao RUI