The Backseat Driver

What I get out of the REU depends on my role.

As an educator I get to work with hard-working students who are creative and willing to tackle ill-posed problems with messy data sets and complex dynamics. These students are a rare breed and it is a privilege spending eight weeks with them tackling a difficult problem. They need to learn a lot of mathematics that normally does not get covered until graduate school and they need to learn how to become a mathematical researcher in a very short timeframe. Furthermore, they need to take this newly attained skill set and assimilate it into their problem-solving abilities to address the REU problem they have selected. It is gratifying, as an educator, to work with students through this process and witness their development from inchoate to adept researcher in a compressed time interval. I am proud to be an instrumental part of their education.

So many feels

So this is Mentor Week on the Lakes blog, and our students chose the topic for our posts: "What do we get out of the REU and what do we learn from our students?"  Wow ... so much to say that I'm not sure where to start...

The Harry Potter Generation

The other day in the research office while we reconvened after lunch, our economics group somehow stumbled upon a conversation about the world my generation has been raised in. I believe that the conversation began with a sidetracked conversation of Harry Potter, but for what started as a funny comparison of experience of the millennials who were raised reading Harry Potter as children and Chris's experience of reading the series as a graduate student, soon became a reflection on 9/11, the Berlin Wall, and the other events that framed these two very different life perspectives. Oddly enough, this conversation is something I find essential to the nature of our interdisciplinary research. We are the generation of technology, supposed progress and immense industrialization. We are also the children shaped by a world of terrorism, increasing environmental degradation, financial crises, and an ever-diverging bipartisan political system. We are the generation marked by the fact that the first election we can legally take part in is one rooted in racism, international mockery, and a future widely unknown. All of these should terrify me more, but they do not because this is the world I know. I was handed this world as such, and for that I cannot change what has been done.

The point of this observation is not to be depressing- far from it actually. Rather, the fact that we were given such an industrialized, globalized, though slightly broken world has also had its advantages. It has raised a generation of young adults who see the world as an interconnected entity. Because of technology, we recognize the world as interdependent. Likewise, the world of academia has grown to reflect that sentiment. Sharing ideas between nations and academic fields is not only encouraged in today's society, but necessary. A large reason I chose my university and major was because of the interdisciplinary facet. And this is also what drew me to apply to the LAKES project.

Stepping out into the World

Working on the Geography team, I've spent a great deal of my summer working within Menomonie. However, I've been able to break that trend last week working with the Sociology and Anthropology team.

Early in the week, the sociology team and I went north to interview a farmer about his land management practices, as well as his renting practices. While I have interviewed for the purpose of research before, it was very interesting to do so over the course of an hour while moving across the farmer's property. As a Geographer, I'm glad I was able to tag along to view the best management practices in use across the landscape in comparison with other practices. You can only understand so much by looking at a map before you need get out and see the world for yourself.

Later in the week, I was able to tag along for an oral history interview with the Anthropology team. The structure of this interview was much different than the Sociology team's interviews. While the interview with the Sociologists was active and full of probing questions, collecting the oral history was very sedentary, and the interview was held more like a conversation. The reason for these difference in techniques is due to the different data each team was trying to collect. Working with Geography, understanding how people view the landscape over periods of time can give context why the land is the way it is. 

I'm always happy to take part in the research of other disciplines. In my opinion, learning to view the world in a different context is one of the most important skills a researcher can have, and there's no better way to build that skill than working outside of your discipline from time to time.  

The Interdisciplinary Anthill

I went on a small hiking trip over the weekend, straying roughly three hours from Menomonie, to a place called Devil’s Lake State Park.  Five weeks into the LAKES internship, I assumed a change of scenery and pace would reinvigorate my scholarly endeavors and allow me to return to my work at Stout with a fresh pair of eyes and a renewed sense of purpose.  What I did not expect was to, through nature, uncover a more holistic understanding of interdisciplinary research.

Stepping into the twilight zone

Some days I wonder if I misread the description and accidentally applied to a biology REU. Applied math by definition is interdisciplinary- you need something to apply that math to-, but I underestimated the extent to which other disciplines come into play. While I have picked up quite a few new math skills, most of my gained knowledge has been focused in the fields of biology and computer science. For the last week or so, I've mostly been reading biology papers and coding- and I find that awesome. After all, I chose to attend a liberal arts college for a reason. Some of the most interesting classes I've taken have been rather discussion-based and somewhat student-led. I find it interesting to see and experience different perspectives. How does a biology major read Frankenstein compared to an English major? How can psychology help us realize why so many people seem to dislike math?

I was able to experience this shift in perspective from both sides this week. When I shadowed the anthropology team, I was reminded of the human factor in the equation. All of the disciplines I am studying this summer are rather data driven, some of the real-word implications are lost when a story is stripped down to the numbers.  While we're working to predict blooms, they are collecting the stories of how people are affected by the blooms.  When the Econ team visited, we got to see how those who have not been exposed to the background of the problem and the math behind it react to our work. It will help us immensely when it come times to tell our story to the community.

Exposure to the unfamiliar helps us to see what biases and perspectives we may take for granted. An interdisciplinary approach may push you into vastly unfamiliar territory. It pushes your boundaries of your knowledge and encourages you to think critically, explore new paths, and recognize when you are out of your depth and need to ask for help.

Unlike previous research experiences I’ve had, this summer I’ve spent a fair amount of time learning about subjects that lie outside of my own major. It has been fascinating to learn about the other students’ research projects and see how they all fit together. While the research is important individually, it’s clear that the information from each individual project is much more powerful if they are presented together. For example, this week I spent a day with the math students instead of my usual economics group to learn more about their project. After a crash course of about 4 or 5 semesters of math concepts, I started to understand the basis of their work. Although I wouldn’t be able to derive the models they’ve been creating myself, understanding seeing the lake’s algae problem explained mathematically helped me get a better grasp on the idea of what has been happening in the lakes and under which conditions the lakes would become cleaner. Meanwhile, as an economics student my work focuses largely on how people make decisions. This is important when efforts to clean up lakes largely depends on the passing of policies. Thus, using the math models to disseminate information to the public in a way that will increase awareness of the situation and influence policy is crucial. Spending a day with the math team helped to solidify the importance of interdisciplinary research in my mind. It showed that while both of our research projects are important, they are most influential if they are presented together. In a more general sense, working on a unified project like this has helped me expand my way of thinking from the usual way that I would approach research. It has been a breath of fresh air to consider this problem from a variety of approaches rather than just analyzing it from an economic standpoint.