Here are some current and recent projects students can and have worked on. Let me know if you're interested.
Environmental Science: stream flow
The
data are measurements of how much water is flowing in streams
throughout the country, measured at regular intervals through time.
The goal
is to see how stream flow is changing over time and how it is
affected by the presence or absence of dams.
Collaborating with Ben Letcher of the Department of Natural Resources
Conservation and the S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center.
Ecology: carbon balance
A significant
amount of carbon is stored in forests and a significant fraction of
that is stored in the soil. To understand the exchange of carbon
between the forest and the atmosphere researchers measure the amount
of carbon dioxide released by the soil into the atmosphere. The
measurements are made year-round over long periods of time, in
different types of forest. The goal is to understand how things
are changing and how carbon balance is different in different types
of forest.
Collaborating with Aaron Ellison of the Harvard Forest.
Neuroscience: spike trains
Neuroscientists can collect electrical data from individual neurons,
up to several hundred at a time, in an animal that is awake and
behaving normally. The electrical data can be used to determine
when each neuron fires. With this data we can investigate such
questions as
- How does the taste center -- the gustatory cortex --
distinguish between Coke and Pepsi, or between Miller,
Miller Lite, Bud, and Bud lite?
- How does an awake event that is experienced in one part of
the brain get translated into a memory or a dream in another
part of the brain?
Collaborating with Jennifer Stapleton of Wake Forest University.
Neuroscience: images of seizures
Some patients with severe epilepsy undergo surgery to find and
remove the part of the brain responsible for the seizures.
When they do, their brains may be photographed in such a way as
to reveal blood flow across the surface of the brain. A series of
such photographs can
show things like seizures spreading across the surface of the cortex.
Our goal is to analyze the blood flow, trying to understand
how seizures spread, what aspects of them are local and what are
global, how similar one seizure is to another, and whether such
images can aid the surgeon in identifying the epileptic focus.
Collaborating with Daryl Hochman of Duke University.
Statistics Education: novices and experts look at graphs
Statistical novices and experts are shown plots and graphs on a computer
and asked questions about them. Their view of the graph is
restricted to a window that is controlled by the mouse. The computer
records how the subjects move the mouse, hence how they look at the graphs.
The goal is to characterize the different ways in which novices and experts look
at the graphs. Collaborating with Cliff Konold of the University of Massachusetts.
Others
My colleagues at UMass and the Five Colleges have other projects
to which students can contribute. Email me for information: lavine@math.umass.edu.