Week 1 – Day 5

I’ve survived ramp-up week! It’s been intense, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot – both about informatics and about my fellow REU students. We didn’t have learning sessions today; we just spoke to our mentors and prepared an elevator pitch. It kind of felt like the first real day on the job because we got to move into our work space.

In the mid-morning, Rob and I met with Nandini Ramanan, our graduate student mentor. We talked for a while about how Dr. Natarajan’s lab worked and exactly where we fit into that picture. I’m already getting the sense that a good chunk of time is going to be spent in meetings.

Though it could change, it appears that Rob and I will be looking at long-term electronic health data. Specifically, we will study how patients’ behaviors change over time and use machine learning techniques to model these lifestyle changes. I’m really excited about getting started on this. Nandini gave us 2 articles to read over the weekend to give us an idea of the work we would be doing.

After talking to Nandini, I wrote my elevator pitch. In the pitch we were supposed to cover the following points:

  • Introduce yourself and where you are from
  • What is your broader research area?
  • What is the problem?
  • Why is it important?
  • How will you address it?
  • End with an interesting question or intriguing contribution

A rough version of what I said for my elevator pitch is below:

Good afternoon, my name is Kate Sanders. I’m a sophomore at Hendrix College, but I am currently in the ProHealth REU at Indiana University. My research is focused on machine learning using longitudinal Electronic Health Data. This summer, I am tracking how patients’ behaviors have changed over the course of several years and modeling the progression of that data using machine learning mathematical models. This research could be used in building a decision support system so that hospitals can know how a patient’s health and lifestyle is changing, provide more personalized healthcare, and better allocate resources to the people who need them. How would having a support system like this help you live a healthier life?

At 2:00, we had a ProHealth Tea featuring some delicious chocolate cake from Blu Boy Bakery. During the tea, we had an elevator pitch competition. I was pretty nervous about it because I hadn’t fully memorized what I wanted to say, but it went surprisingly well – I won 2nd place! Gabby, one of my suite-mates, won the top prize for her amazing pitch. Together, we have $15 to be used at Blu Boy; we hope to buy another cake with the money.

That was the end of the day for ProHealth, though I hung around a while to talk with Ben, get kitchen supplies from Dr. Siek, and print off journal articles to read this weekend. Once I got back, I took a well-deserved nap and hit up Food Truck Friday with some of my REU friends.

Unknown Animal of the Day: Glass Frog

From the back, this South-American family of frogs look much like ordinary tree frogs. However, their abdominal skin is transparent, allowing you to see their insides without dissecting them in a lab.

Conservation Status: Several species within this family are Endangered, some critically so. This is mostly due to deforestation and global warming.