Project Updates

Thursday, May 2nd, 2024: 

Completed my literature review on neutrino cross section and differential cross section measurements last class. I am going to continue my conversation with Nicole Apadula from Cal this coming Monday, and hopefully we will discuss some possible research opportunities. Researching the Eos experiment.

Tuesday, May 7th, 2024: 

After the meeting, working with Nicole Apadula as a mentor seems to be likely! She presented me with two different directions to go in for research, one simulating the thermal performance of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), and another researching the optimal layout of the tracker in the ALICE 3 detector. I haven't decided which direction I would like to go in yet, but both seem like really exciting opportunities.

Tuesday, May 28th, 2024:

After creating posters for our proposed research projects (you can find mine at the bottom of Research Overview), our MARC class had a poster session where we had the chance to share our work with the Marin Academy community. It was a really fun experience, and I was super glad to have this chance to show what I've been working on for the past year. As I move into the summer, I feel like I am in a good spot, and I plan to educate myself a bit more thoroughly on computer science and python. Once Nicole Apadula has been fully confirmed as my mentor, she will be able to make me a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory affiliate, which will trigger some training that once I complete, will allow me to work in the lab, which will be a great opportunity.

Monday, September 16th, 2024:

I'm back! Over the summer, I worked on Harvard's CS50 course, getting myself familiar with python and a couple other languages so I could be prepared for restarting my project in the fall. I've had a meeting with Nicole and a grad student who I will also be working with, and we've determined the next steps to be to continue familiarizing myself with python. I'm currently reading the documentation for four different packages in python: NumPy, MatPlotLib, SciPy, and Pandas. I'm now also a Berkeley Lab affiliate, which means I'll have access to the simulation resources necessary soon!

Tuesday, October 29th, 2024:

I had a meeting with Nicole and the postgrad yesterday, and the project is now officially underway! My next steps are to simply be creative, try out different layouts, module sizes and whatever else I want to modify. I've been given an algorithm that uses iterative brute force for dynamic paving to base my work off of, but I've also been encouraged to explore different algorithms. I'll be looking into packages that support dynamic paving and machine learning options. Although it's daunting, I'm very excited to get started!

Friday, December 13th, 2024:

I made huge progress in the month of September! Through my Applied AI in Python class final project, I was able to work on implementing a machine learning model that can produce module coordinates for a much wider range of structure and disk specifications than what is currently available. The code that was provided by Nicole is hard coded to work for only specific types of modules and disk sizes, and with new design ideas and requirements coming in all the time, this code needs constant updating to keep up. So, the idea was to use the structures that this code is designed for as training data for a machine learning model that can be more robust and resistant to change. With the limited time that I had for my final project in this Applied AI in Python class, I was able to produce a strong preliminary result. It still needs a lot of work be a usable product, but I'm confident that I'll get there. I've linked the code here, if you'd like to learn about the details and the challenges we had to overcome to create this result.

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025

After a visit to the Lawrence Berkeley Lab a couple weeks back, I've been working to implement their recommendations into my code. I also got the opportunity to help take some measurements for a cooling systems for the Electron-Ion Collider, which was quite interesting to learn about.

Monday, June 2nd, 2025

I've reached the conclusion of my MARC journey. It's been such a memorable and valuable part of my high school experience, and I'm so grateful for the opportunities it's given me access to. The Wildcat Colloquium was very rewarding, and made me feel very excited to continue studying physics in college! I'll update with a video of my portion of the Colloquium as soon as it's made available.