Updates

May 28th, 2024:

Last day of junior year MARC!!! It has been quite successful so far, I have an official mentor, I have created a research poster, and I have a good idea of what direction my research project and collection will go in the fall. The poster presentations were last Friday (05/24/24), here is my poster, they went really well, it was great to practice explaining my topic to people who do not have a background in the field that I am interested in, the questions that people asked were also helpful in refining my process/methodology. This summer I hope to continue to read relevant articles pertaining to both my field and my proposed research project. I want to continue to revise my literature review and potentially receive certification for working with human participants as well as acquaint myself with data analysis/statistics software.

June 18th, 2024: 

Meeting with Dr. Simon, we began to talk more seriously about the research I want to pursue, she showed me the data I will be able to access once my onboarding process with UCB is complete. She said we could plan to use a research question very similar to the one on my project proposal. Additionally, we will be analyzing how age and gender affect/play into anxiety caused by sleep loss. I am super excited to start!!!

July 9th, 2024: 

I have completed my forms for approval from CPHS at Berkely, now I await approval. 

August 22nd, 2024: 

First day of senior MARC!!! I am still awaiting approval from Berkely to get started, hopefully, that will go through sometime soon. Currently, I am going through a Python course from Harvard, and reading current literature to be ready to dive into research once the approvals go through. 

September 14th, 2024: 

The approval finally went through, and I have been added to the IRB protocol! I am now working with Dr. Simon to find a time to meet. 

September 17th, 2024: 

Dr. Simon has responded to my email regarding setting up a meeting sometime soon, she has requested to meet in early October, as she has a sleep conference that she is attending at the end of September that she has to prepare for. I was hoping that we could meet sooner but in the meantime, I will continue to read literature and familiarize myself with Python. I gave her some dates at the beginning of October so that we can get a meeting on the books now, so I will have a better timeline mapped out. 

September 23rd, 2024: 

Still awaiting a response from Dr. Simon. 

September 29th, 2024: 

A meeting with Dr. Simon has been scheduled for October 3rd at 9 am. 

October 8th, 2024: 

Had my meeting with Dr. Simon!!! It went really well, we identified a research question: How does sleep loss affect sensitivity to stress and anxiety, does gender play a role in these different sensitivities, additionally, can sleep restore these altered levels of anxiety and stress? I am really happy with this question, and it encompasses a lot of what I am interested in. Dr. Simon has also sent me data that she would like me to start organizing before we meet again. 

October 16th, 2024: 

Began to sift through the raw data that she sent over, and compared it with the template that she sent me, I had a couple of questions so I sent Dr. Simon a pretty extensive email, that asked many questions. 

October 22nd, 2024: 

Dr. Simon has responded, that she would like to meet on October 28th, to discuss all of my questions, we are also working to set a time in November that we could meet in person. 

October 28th, 2024: 

Dr. Simon and I met in person and she clarified many things about how she wants the raw data to be formatted, we also worked to pick out a time in November to meet in person, as of now we have decided on November 13th. 

November 13th, 2024: 

Today I went into the lab for the first time, I finally met Dr. Simon face-to-face.  She showed me the sleep lab, introduced me to a PhD student (Gillian), the lab manager (James), and showed me the paper studies that have to be digitized, there are many of them. We will be looking at four studies, about half of which need to be properly digitized. I didn't have time to get started on digitizing them today but I planned with Eti to come in over Thanksgiving break, Eti won't be here, but James will. 

November 25th, 2024: 

First day officially working in the lab. I went in for about 3-4 hours. I met Tenzin who is a post-doc, and James got me settled in an office (Matt Walker's actually), and I have been working on scanning the studies to convert them into PDF documents. Today I worked specifically on converting the sleep-rested state documents for about twenty-two participants into PDF documents for the ANTT study. I didn't finish that study today so I will have to go back in soon to finish it up. 

December 14th, 2024: 

I went into the lab again today, it went very well, I officially have finished digitizing the ANTT study, next it needs to be filled in on Excel in the format that my mentor would like. Next time I go in I will be working on the REW study, which is going to be harder to sift through/organize as it is older and slightly outdated in its organization. 

January 18th, 2024: 

I went into the lab today. I began work on the REW study, it is very difficult to sift through and attempt to organize but James has shared the amount of time points I need for each participant, so I am double-checking. my work as I go. I didn't get through much but I am going in again on January 29th, and will be meeting with RAs for support, and James will be in the whole time because it will be a weekday. 

Semester update: 

As deadlines approach I find that the work and time I need to put into the project are ramping up, going straight from cross-country to soccer while finishing college applications, I had little time to dedicate to MARC, however, now that I am in my second semester I feel that I have more time and energy to dedicate to finishing up my project. Additionally, my free block has been moved so it is on EFG days, I will be taking advantage of that, and probably going into the lab when I have MARC and free block back-to-back. Right now I am working to finish organizing the data, there is a lot of it and it will be very time-consuming but I am getting support from the lab manager and RAs. I will also have to continue to work on my paper, I have a rough draft of my introduction so far. 

April 4th: 

Right before Spring Break. As the school year winds down, I am working on my paper and the final push of analyzing data. All of my data is coded, and I need to create figures for my paper. I am looking to use Python for this process. I have a large dataset and many values that I think will lead to interesting and clear trends in my data.  I will take some of the first week of Spring Break to analyze my data and really get deep into my writing process. I am not exactly where I want to be right now, but I am going to work to close this gap between now and the end of Spring Break. 

May 5th: 

I am currently in my last week of school at Marin Academy. After this week, I will have roughly three weeks to put the final touches on my paper (most likely updating my Results section). Additionally, I will have to prepare to present at the Wildcat Colloquium. I have currently finalized an Intro and a Methods section. I am still waiting on a meeting with my mentor, later this week, before I begin to tackle my Results and then my Discussion. I have had very little time to dedicate to MARC the past two weeks because I am in the school's spring play (a requirement for my theater class). Luckily, the play will be over after this week. My goal is to dedicate significant time over the weekend and on Monday to have a rough draft of my final paper, before Amy returns from leave on Tuesday. After that is submitted, I will connect with her on how best to proceed on my presentation. 

May 29th: 

It is the day after the colloquium, and I have completed the presentation. I am also very close to finishing my paper, as I just need to update my citations and figures, as well as run statistical analyses for two of my figures. I am feeling relieved to be done with the presentation and am looking forward to finalizing my paper. My current results: Statistically significant relationship between sleep loss and anxiety, notable relationship between sleep and gender (working on statistical significance now). These promising preliminary results call for more research into the role that sleep loss plays in anxiety as well as the relationship between sleep and gender. I hope to continue to work in research in college, whether or not it is in this field.