What is the Science and Engineering Research

Program at Tech and do I want to be a part of it?

By: Dr. Davis

SERP Goals

• To conduct a complete research experiment– Develop, test and talk about your own idea

• To compete in science competitions– Fame and fortune

• To see if a research career is for you

What is research?

• 1/3 Looking for the answer– Reading, Searching and Organizing

• 1/3 Experimenting – Testing Your Idea

• 1/3 Telling others about your answer– Writing and Presenting

Is SERP right for you?• Self motivated and goal oriented

– Coaches and mentors telling you what to do but you will need to do it

• Passionate about one particular thing– You will be working on this one project for at

least a year or more

• Enjoy working hard

Science Competitions• Year 1:

– Google Science Fair (website and video)• April 2012• Teams of 2 or 3

• Year 2:– New York City Science and Engineering Fair

(written research paper)• Dec 2013• Teams of 2 or 3

• Year 3:– INTEL Science Fair

• Nov 2014

SERP ‘Tryouts’

• A well developed proposal for a scientific research experiment submitted by June 1st

• Teams of 2 or 3 are strongly preferred

• We will meet every Thursday for about 2 hours

• Individual meetings by appointment

• So start brainstorming!!!

Research Proposal

• Research Question

• Background Literature Search– Citations

• Experiment

• Expected results

• Timeline

• Budget

Research Question• What are you passionate about?

• Can I study this in about a year?

• Is this a reasonable experiment to do in High School?

• Has this been done before?

Ideas from NPR Science Friday

• Multitasking

• Economics of energy savings

• Swarms and Crowds

• BPA

• Smell and Memory

• Electricity from bacteria

• Effects of thinking about eating

• Many past Intel winners

Background Search• Encyclopedias and Wikipedia

– unreliable as a citation but great place to start

• Google Scholar

• GaleGroup – NYPL

• Author’s site

• Citations– Write down EXACTLY where you go the

information

Dr. Frank Burbrink

• Dr. Burbrink works in the fields of evolutionary biology and herpetology (reptiles and amphibians).

• Examples of research include:– Phylogenetics: evolutionary relationships between or within

species– Speciation: process of new species forming– Divergence dating: when did speciation occur?– Niche Modeling: predicting potential ranges of populations

• Research is done using molecular evidence (DNA)– Field Work: Collection of tissues from living or dead organisms– Laboratory Work: Extraction and sequencing of DNA– Data Analysis: Building evolutionary trees in computer programs based

on DNA

• LINK: http://163.238.8.180/~fburbrink/

• Jasleen Ahuja

• Dr. Daniel McCloskey, Ph.D.• College of Staten Island

• Research conducted on mice• Tracking of mice movement and

activity• Search for patterns of activity during

different times of day• Correlate findings with brain function

and thyroid function of mice

Astrophysics with Dr. Charles Liu

• Studying the spectra from galaxies and stars• Currently working on determining if there is a

relationship between the mass of a central black hole and the star formation rate of a host galaxy

http://casswww.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/Stars.html

Dr. Chang-Hui Shen

• Molecular genetics– Research on the roles and effects of various

genes in yeast cells

• Safanah Siddiqui worked with the transcriptional activator gene IN02 in his lab at CSI with an undergraduate student

Other Projects

• Dr. Michael Chiacchiero– Phyical Therapy

• Urban Barcode Project

Homework for April 14th • Really think about your level of interest• Answer the following questions:

– Who are you and why do you want to be a part of SERP? (typed paragraph)

– Who is your team? (2 or 3 names)

• Have a preliminary question and begin researching it

• Bring one article to analyze thursday