Sudeep Sundar

Introduction:

My name is Sudeep Sundar and I am currently a Senior. I've always been interested in math and science which is why the Science Research course suits me perfectly. My third year in the Science Research program has almost come to a close and this is what I have to share...

My Journey:

• During my freshman year, also my first year taking Science Research, I was off to a slow start as to figuring out what topic to delve into. After two months had elapsed, I realized what I was interested in researching about was Stem Cells. Although "Stem Cells" is an extremely broad subject, I was able to narrow my field of research in another month to "The Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Cancer Therapy." I read through dozens of publicly available journals on the matter until the end of my freshman year.

• While I was still interested in my previous topic, I had realized there wasn't much opportunity available for me, as a fifteen year old at the time, to conduct research and experiments using stem cells with guidance. So, at the start of my junior year, I decided to change course and find another topic of interest. Thus, I started researching about "The Effects of Sleep On Memory" and read through many journals on the field. I continued with this research until mid junior year. Again, I ran into the same issue as I did my freshman year: not being able to find experimental opportunities for myself. 

• Yet again, I switched my research topic; this time to a field that comes with an opportunity. I began to research about energy use and landed upon the topic of "The effect of weather and weather patterns on energy consumption in commercial and residential buildings." Over the past summer, I analyzed a publicly available data set to determine the two research questions mentioned earlier: is there a correlation between temperature and/or temperature feeling and energy consumption? And is there a significant difference in energy consumption based on the time of year?

• Finally, I wrote a research journal that displayed my findings from the data analysis. (attached below)