ASB Day 2: Learning about Forams

(Apologies for the delay, slow wifi at the hotel)
Today was day 2 of my internship at the National Museum of National History for Alternate Spring Break, which I introduced you to yesterday

The lab where I'm working

I'm plugging and chugging away at my project still (I'm hoping to have all the big moving pieces worked out by tomorrow, so we can start working on the bells and whistles on Thursday and Friday). But I lucked out today because I got a tour of the paleobiology work area today and learned more about how the project I'm working on relates to the work they do. I mentioned in yesterday's post that the Excel workbook I'm helping reconstruct was used to categories specimens into homogeneous groups ... well this was applied to the study of foraminifera (forams for short)

A foram, up close and personal

The many varieties (only a sampling) of forams

I felt quite lucky to get a tour of the Cushman foram collection by Dr. Martin Buzas. He showed me some samples on a stereoscopic microscope (now in 3D!).

These things are so itty bitty....

That in order to get them onto a slide, they have to use a small paint brush to order the specimens in ordered rows and columns.

Forams are really fascinating; they are some of the most common plankton species; they've been around for 30 million years (as opposed to humans who've been around for about 2 million); they can be used for dating other fossils; they make some amazingly intricate and varied shell structures ... basically they rock. Which is I guess why the scientist, Zheng Shouyi, was so easily able to convince the Chinese government to build a forma sculpture park. No joke

Forma Sculpture Park (source: Smithsonian online magazine)

I also got to see where they keep the large vertebrate fossils

They build the casts to protect the fossils for transport

Row of fossils (you can see what I'm standing next to in the following picture at the end...)

Me next to an Apatosaurus (formerly Brontosaurus) femur bone

The Dinosaur Hall in the Natural History Museum

It is crazy because the museum is planning on redoing the Dinosaur Hall soon and it is going to take SEVEN years to complete! Take a good look because it won't be the same again!

My mom always wanted me to go into science .... maybe this is my back door in?

Alternate Spring Break: National Museum of Natural History and Ben's Chili Bowl

I'm on Alternate Spring Break (ASB) this year in Washington DC at the National Museum of Natural History - which is amazing! ASB matches SI students with public and non-profit institutions all over the country for a week long internship. It is a win-win for all of us: we get some extra work experience at some heavy-hitting institutions* and they get a week of free labor from us.

My internship is a perfect fit for me: large datasets, Visual Basic in Excel, and creating a better user experience, oh my! I'm working in the paleobiology department helping Dr. Lee-Ann Hayek, a statistician, rebuild an Excel workbook that she built. The program takes raw data of various samples counting the number of species (think: samples taken from different depths of the ocean floor) and breaks them into homogenous groupings. It can be used as a way to tell when (in space, depth, latitude, gradient, etc) the samples you've collected are distinct from each other. Dr. Hayek believes that this program - and the analysis that it is built upon - has a lot of applications ... she just needs help building a user-friendly experience. That's where I come in.

Fingers are crossed that I'll be able to finish everything I want to do before the week is up - but it was really heart-warming how excited everyone was about the work I started producing today. We're off to a good start!

I got out of work a little late today - but was still able to catch a local icon of DC: Ben's Chili Bowl

Caitlin getting excited about chili dogs

A short history of Ben's, in case you want to know more

Yummy!

The weather was perfect tonight (mid 40s?) so we walked back to the hotel. It has been so long since I've been to DC that I had totally forgotten how wonderfully walkable and pedestrian/bike-friendly it is here.

Oh. And to end on a light hearted-note this is the sign for the hotel where we're staying. Notice anything interesting about it...?

Bat Signal?

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*summer internships, anyone?

A2 Datadive Recap: Over 70 participants and 2 non-profits helped!

Welcome to the very long overdue recap of the A2 Datadive that I helped host from February 10th - 12th. We had 78 people attend our event that weekend and a lot of amazing work was done for the two non-profits that kindly shared their data with us.

To refresh your memory, a datadive is an opportunity for local non-profits with data they aren't sure what to do with to meet up with data scientists who are willing to provide assistance. The concept was developed by Jake Porway at Data Without Borders, who lamented the fact that non-profits didn't always have the resources to take full advantage of the data they were collecting. Datadives are intended to give these organizations access to folks with the skills to get them started on taking their data to the next level.

This year we had two non-profit participants: Focus: HOPE, a group that is working to improve the quality of life their neighborhood in Detroit and the African Health OER Network (AHON), which is collaboration between medical colleges in the United States and Africa that is providing open educational resources to under-resourced medical colleges in Africa. Each group came with their own set of unique data problems and questions. Focus: HOPE was interested in learning more about the community that they serve (which areas of their neighborhood are taking advantage of their programs? what are the demographics of their community like? can we identify under represented populations in our target area?). AHON wanted to know about the resources they distributed (who was taking advantage of them? which resources or mediums were most used?) and the network that provided those resources (who in the network contributed the most content? could we identify influential members in the network? could we identify members that were not as engaged as other members?)

The plan for the weekend was simple. On Friday evening, the non-profits we had recruited presented their data and questions to the group and there was time for all the participants to socialize before the big work day. Work on Saturday started early, with the data scientist participants digging through the data and coming up with methods to begin answering some of the non-profits' questions. Sunday was reserved for wrapping up the work that was done, documenting the process, and reporting to the non-profits on what we uncovered. Simple, right?

We lost no time getting started on Saturday morning. Above are the two teams strategizing what they intend to work on and how they will plan out their work for the day.

We took over North Quad on the University of Michigan's Central Campus for the weekend. Thankfully there was a lot of space for all of the break out groups to work.

Several Ann Arbor community members came up to me during the event to thank me for hosting an event like this; they were so excited to help in such a unique way. Data Without Borders really tapped into a deep unvoiced need amongst data scientists to be able to contribute their skills for the greater good. It was inspiring to be around so many folks who were so enthusiastic about lending their talents to help institutions in need.

Having fun working with data

Sunday's wrap up was a great chance for us all to see what everyone else had been working on. Above is the work from one of the AHON groups looking at the influence of various members within the organization's network. Preparing for the presentations also gave groups the opportunity to clean up their documentation on the Data Without Borders wiki. As you can see below, several groups tried to create step-by-step instructions so that the non-profits could replicate the work that was done after the datadive was over. Here's a link to the wiki page, in case your interested in the details of what work was done.

But none of this would have been possible without the enormous efforts of my team mates and the student volunteers we had on hand during the event. And of course I can't forget organizations like, Data Driven Detroit and Code for America, who lent their support and know-how to our event as well. Sometimes I'm really staggered when I think about the fact that we basically planned this whole event in less than 3 months... while still being full-time grad students.... HA!

Thanks again for all your help guys!

The Dream Team: Nikki Roda, Emily Puckett Rodgers, and Claire Barco

Emily, Claire, and I are already getting started on planning the event for next year. Fingers crossed, we'll have this event tucked into one of the student organizations on campus. By doing so we hope to keep the institutional memory so that SI and Open.Michigan will keep on datadiving even after Claire and I graduate.

Our big brother organization, Data Without Borders, has shown us so much support and been so encouraging during this whole process that I have no doubts we'll be able to muster up enough energy to hold this event again next year.

A2 Datadive starts this weekend!

It is finally coming together, folks! What started as an idea this summer has rolled into an event that we'll be hosting at my school THIS weekend!

I know you'll all be with me this weekend in spirit - but in case your interested, you can follow along with the work being done this weekend by checking out the project pages we've set up on the Data Without Borders wiki. As work gets done, we'll be documenting the process on the wiki so that the non-profits have a record of all the work that was done (and hopefully some instructions on how to replicate it).

Here is the link for the African Health OER Network project page.

And here's the link for Focus: HOPE's project page. You can see I've already added a lot of documentation to Focus: HOPE's page because their data needed a lot more scrubbing and prep work ahead of the datadive.

We apparently have 70 people registered for the event already - which is incredible! I feel so thankful that I go to a school where there is such a positive environment for giving back to the community. Anyone's guess as to how many people ACTUALLY show up - especially since we weren't expecting people to stay all day ... but still! This is pretty awesome!

Regardless of the turn out, I've planted a couple of ringers into the group, so I'm confident that we'll have some good output for the non-profits by the end of the weekend.

Keep your fingers crossed for me this weekend! This is probably the biggest (and most uncertain) event I've ever put together. I'll be sure to keep you posted as to how it went!

A2 Datadive: Where Science Meets Service

This is the home page for my school advertising the datadive that I'm helping to host - the A2 Datadive. The event, which is based on a Data Without Borders's datadive, is being held Friday February 10th - Sunday 12th. I still can't believe that the "small idea" I had to bring a datadive to UMich is actually happening...

I mean, we still have a lot of work left to put it all together -- but I'm just totally amazed at how all it took was an idea ... I found so many generous people at SI who were willing to help me make it a reality.

My freakin' awesome day!

Every once in a while the universe conspires to just make everything click into place ... today was that time for me. I apologize in advance for the gloating ... but today has just been too awesomely perfect not to share.

To begin with, I had my first day on the job as a new associate at the Stephen S. Clark Map Library at UM. Turns out this library is a much bigger deal that I originally suspected; it is combining three different smaller areas of the graduate libraries (Maps, Government Information, and Data). Their mission is to make all this information freely accessible to the public so the new space they are building is front and center right across from the main reference area. We'll have digital display areas, a lab area, and a designated teaching space all beyond just the collection. It will be epic ... and I'm the new data person. LOL! Meaning, I'm the only one working there (as a graduate student) that isn't specializing in Library Science ... so I get all the neat data visualization, analysis, and GIS (geographic information systems) projects. SCORE!

Then I had an impromptu meeting with the resident Information Technology and Communication for Development specialist at my school. I'm taking his class, but I wanted to ask him if he'd be interested in some of the research projects I'm working on ... including some collaboration I'm doing with a former colleague on Social Impact Measurement for non-profits. I laid out my plan for how I want to take advantage of all these networks that are working in tandem around me at the moment: my colleague, Alibeth Somers, looking at Social Impact Measurement; the Data Without Borders team that is trying to connect non-profits in the developing world to data scientist in the developed world to help solve their information flow problems (through Contextual Inquiry to all my SI501 friends* out there!); and all of the student groups on campus that are focused towards improving NGO performance through better data implementation, like the Community Informatics Corp. He was a little skeptical at first (mostly because my project sounds enormous) but once I showed him some of the work I did at Agribusiness Systems International in Lucknow, India he said "That! I want you to write a report on that!" Cha-ching! Finding a faculty advisor: check!

I was already planning on picking up my amazing bike today (the shop put a kick-ass basket on back so I don't have to wear my backpack when I'm riding). But just actually having it was squeal worthy!

And THEN (!) my friend Gina (of moving-in fame) finished her preliminary exams (qualifiers for her PhD candidacy) ... and so we celebrated with an early happy hour! Huzzah for excuses to drink beer at 4:30pm on a Monday afternoon!

And THEN (!!) I got an insane 4 missed calls from Allen. I called him back worried that something had happened - and something had happened: SOMEONE MADE AN OFFER ON OUR APARTMENT!!!! YEAH! We haven't decided if we're going to accept (they offered lower than our asking), but we have begun negotiations! Someone liked our apartment! Hope is not lost!

And THEN (!!!) nearly 20 minutes later Allen calls to tell me that someone else is coming to see the apartment this evening! WE ARE COOKING WITH GAS FOLKS!

I don't know if anything will come of these prospective buyers for our apartment, but it takes a huge weight off our shoulders to know that there is interest ... and that Allen might finally be able to join me in Ann Arbor before Thanksgiving!

So you see, I couldn't NOT tell you about this crazily-awesome-amazing-fantastic-joy-filled-crazy-freakin'-day I had today.

Have you ever had a similar type of day? I hope so.

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* SI501 is the required course that MSI students at UM have to take. It is essentially about project management, but done through the lens of contextual inquiry (ie seeing how users interact with their information/data and to see if there are any outsider perspectives they can give on how to improve flow/process). It is apparently the class everyone suffers through (crazy amounts of busy work and you're working on a team, who you apparently want to murder by the end of the semester). I feel pretty fortunate that my 501 group seems really awesome and I'm hoping that we all make it through this class alive.