The project I worked on this summer focused on analyzing the movement of the roundworm (C. elegans). This species is commonly used as a subject animal in medical research. Researchers observe different genetic strains of the worm and count the number of times that the worms move. Currently, this counting is all done by hand. A lab attendant watches the worms through a microscope and carefully records their movements. This project hopes to automate this task, recording and analyzing their movements automatically to help streamline research.

This project gave me great experience in contributing to a codebase shared among a team. For all of the programming projects I had done in the past I had been the lone contributor. Working as part of a team posed a whole new set of challenges. I had to make sure that my code was as well commented and easy to understand as possible, and I had to make sure that my code worked with everyone else’s and that my changes wouldn’t break a different person’s project. It also gave me great experience in presenting my research. Every week there was a meeting to check in on each person’s project, and everyone would take turns presenting their work for the week. At first my presentations were extremely subpar, and while at the end they were still far from perfect, I could feel my presentation skills improving each and every week.

This project contributed to my educational experience in many ways. Firstly, it allowed me to see how research is conducted. In class we are always able to see the results of research, but very rarely do we get to see the actual process that went into discovering the facts presented to us. Secondly, it gave me a great opportunity to put the things I learned in class to use, and helped me grasp the concepts much better. If a method of doing something is presented to me on a blackboard I may understand it superficially, but to really gain a deep understanding and cement it permanently in my memory I have to use it to solve a real world problem. This research gave me the perfect opportunity to do that with what I learned in my computer science classes.