Summer 2013

This summer I have been examining a phenomenological model of the flow in a rotating can, which may be analogous to submesoscale ocean eddy flow. I hope to spend the rest of the summer investigating the effect the overturning rate has on modeled phytoplankton growth through a simple quadratic NPZ model using the rotating can flow. Read on for more of what's been done so far.

MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography: An Update

Wow, it has been a very long time since I posted anything here. I suppose that's not surprising, though, because I am in my first year of graduate school. I'll just give a short update.

At WHOI Again

I am back at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute for the summer, and it is nice to be back. I am continuing my work with Young-Oh Kwon on divers4oceanography.org; specifically I am trying to determine whether the temperature data from SCUBA divers is useful for oceanography. So far I have been looking at a small data set and thinking about what 'useful' means.

In other news, I absolutely love sailing. I sailed sunfish a bunch when I was much younger, and have just recently gotten back into sailing, including a 10-day tallship cruise through WHOI and SEA on the SSV Corwith Cramer, a beautiful ship. The cruise was exhausting but fun, and we were able to collect a huge amount of water samples for scientists at WHOI.

Well, back to work. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Articles

Having graduated from Skidmore about two weeks ago, one would think I would have plenty of time to update this blog. Fortunately or unfortunately, that is not the case. I have temporarily moved home, spent time finding an apartment for the fall, and am working on modifying my math thesis to submit it for publication. Meantime, I realized I have not put up my previously published articles. So, here they are:
Self Assembly of Janus Ellipsoids (Langmuir, 2012, 28, 3-9)
Encapsulation by Janus Spheroids (Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 6027)

I hope everyone's enjoying the summer. Hopefully, more updates soon.

WHOI

So, it's decided- I'm going to WHOI for grad school! I'm really excited to be going back, since I had a good time researching there in January. I'll be there for the summer and doing a 10 day research cruise on a sailing ship. Come fall, I'll be living in Boston and taking most of my classes at MIT.

Speaking of WHOI, I just found this picture: Picture of the Day

I hope everyone out there looking at grad schools is as happy as I am right now.

Quick Update

Hi all-
This semester has been wildly busy, despite taking as few credits as I ever have. Between a thesis and research, traveling to grad schools, and general coursework, I haven't updated in far too long. So here's what's been going on:

Updated CV: new research listed

Genevieve (Jay) Brett

Education
MIT-WHOI Joint Program
Physical Oceanography 
 
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, May 2012
BA in Mathematics and Physics
GPA: 3.885 Overall, 4.000 Math, 3.957 Physics
Dean’s List Highest Honors, Fall 2008-present
Honors Forum member
Porter Scholar in Mathematics and Science

Study Abroad at l’Universite de Sherbrooke, Canada, Spring 2011
College of Literature and Humanities

University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, Summer 2007 and 2009

Hopkins School, New Haven, CT, May 2008

Research Experience
“Divers4Oceanography.org”, January and  July-September 2012

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, working with Drs. Andres and Kwon

Examining the feasibility of using scuba divers’ temperature data for coastal oceanographic research. Analysis of initial data and experiments. Presented at WHOI, January 2011.

Introduction to Partial Differential Equations Using Fluid Mechanics Applications, January to June 2012

Thesis in Mathematics at Skidmore, advised by Professor Rachel Roe-Dale

Presenting a brief history and introduction to differential equations and fluid mechanics, followed by work similar to Burchard, 2001(J. Phys. Ocean.) and Craig, 1996(J. Geophys. Research).

“The deepening rate of the ocean surface boundary layer under breaking waves”, September 2011 to May 2012
Skidmore College Department of Physics, working with Professor Greg Gerbi
Using analysis and numerical simulation to examine the transmission of turbulent kinetic energy through a stratified ocean column with wave breaking.

“Encapsulation by Janus Particles”, May to August 2011
Lehigh University Department of Physics REU, working under Professor Jim Gunton
Used standard Monte Carlo simulation to investigate the efficiency of encapsulating spherical particles by Janus ellipsoids as a function of the density and ellipsoid aspect ratio.  Presentations: Lehigh July 2011, Skidmore October 2011.
Articles: submitted “Encapsulation by Janus Oblate Spheroids”; accepted  Langmuir “Self Assembly of Janus Ellipsoids”

“Electric charge memory design using finite element methods in Java”, June to August 2010
Skidmore College Department of Physics, working with Professor Andrew Skinner
Programmed and evaluated a finite-element electric field estimation which was used to examine possible designs of charge-holding “Coulomb Pucks”.  Presented at Skidmore October 2010.

Community and Leadership
Pi Mu Epsilon, Skidmore, Vice President Sept.-Dec. 2010 and Sept. 2011-May 2012
Martial Arts Club, Skidmore, Vice President Jan.-May 2009, Treasurer Sept. 2009-May 2012
Society of Physics Students, Skidmore, chapter Treasurer Sept.-Dec. 2010
Student Academic Council, Skidmore, Physics Department Representative Sept.-Dec. 2010
Science Networking Organization, Skidmore, founding member and Treasurer Sept.-Dec. 2010

Awards and Society Memberships

·         Skidmore's Robert and Marcia DeSieno Prize for Excellence in Mathematics, May 2012

·         Skidmore's Eleanor A. Samworth Prize in Physics, May 2012

Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics member, awarded by the Skidmore Math faculty, November 2011

American Mathematical Society member, awarded by the Skidmore Math faculty, November 2010 and 2011

Sigma Pi Sigma member, inducted April 2010

Pi Mu Epsilon member, inducted March 2010

Nominated for the Goldwater Scholarship, January 2010

Additional Experience and Skills
Peer Tutor, September 2009-present
Skidmore College, Student Academic Services
Courses: General Physics 1 and 2, Light and Color, Modern Physics, Calculus 1

Grader, September 2009-December 2010
Skidmore College, Mathematics and Computer Science Department
Courses: Calculus 1, Statistics, Linear Algebra

Student Worker, Student Supervisor, September 2008-present

Skidmore College Dining Services

Putnam exam participant, each December 2008-present

Score of 10 on the 2010 exam

 
Advanced spoken and intermediate written French
Experience with MATLAB, Mathematica, and GOTM
Proficient with programming in Java, basic understanding of C++

At WHOI; Grad Apps Done

Well, I've finished applying to grad school! Next up: summer internships, in case whatever program I go to doesn't/can't fund research for the summer. I'll get to that sometime (first deadline is Feb 1st, so I've got some time).

In other news, work at WHOI is going well. I am getting some pretty interesting results. Still not sure if diving data will be useful to scientists. The seasonal pattern is definitely there, and variance among dive computers is smaller than yearly variance of water temps, so that's good. Young-Oh says if you squint, you can see interannual variability; I don't know how you would quantify it well from what we've got, but I'm not the PI, after all.
Read on for some details on the research.

Research at WHOI

I am currently at WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, as an intern. I am working with Young-Oh Kwon and Magdalena Andres as well as a graduate student, Derya A Yellin. Derya came up with the idea to use temperature data from scuba divers as an additional dataset when studying near-shore physical processes. She is organizing the creation of a website to create a database of that information. I am working on the analysis of a small dataset to examine the relevant time and spacial scales. We will also be investigating the accuracy of various dive computers' temperature recordings.

In other news, just got my grades back from last semester- 4.0! I was definitely not expecting that, but I am very happy. Oh, I also am up to 9 submitted applications for grad school. Debating applying to Teach for America.
ttfn

Books

A little more than two years ago there was a challenge floating around my neighborhood of the internet. It was very straightforward: read 100 books in 2010. I decided to try it, so I tracked the books I read in 2010, and got to 67 books. Admittedly, that's on average more than a book a week, so that's not bad. This year, I tried again. And today I finished the 100th book I've read this year!
Next year my goal is to read 50 books in English, 5 livres en francais, and 50 scholarly articles. The French books will probably be the kicker, but I've only read about a dozen articles this year, so that could be too. We'll see- it depends on where I'm looking for background for my thesis in the spring and what I'm doing after graduation.
Anyway, back to working on my grad school apps, now that I've finished my book. I've submitted 5 apps, but that means I have 6 to go.

Published! Update on Janus particle research.

One of the articles I collaborated on this summer (at my REU at Lehigh) is now published as a letter in Langmuir, a physical chemistry journal.

Self Assembly of Janus Ellipsoids

Applying to Graduate School; Warnings

So, I have my final list of graduate programs all put together, my recommenders all have their information, I've put together my resume, started work on my personal statement...the one problem is transcripts. There's a strike of the union workers at l'Universite de Sherbrooke (in Quebec province) where I did my study abroad. So those transcripts are taking up to a month to arrive, which I did not count on. Plus, they cannot currently fax them, so they're taking that long to get mailed to the translation service too. So much for everything being on time, let's hope a note of explanation will help the admissions committee. Anyway, my advice for today is to be prepared early with transcripts and translations if you study at any non-English speaking institution.

In other news, I am not going to grad school in physics because I realized how important it is to me to precisely understand the math involved. I get very frustrated with handwaving explanations and using math I don't fully understand. So I am mostly applying to applied math programs. I want to still look at modeling the physical world, but from a mathematically rigorous position. In fact, I am generally as interested in the math as the physics, and find the math to come more naturally. I am still applying to the MIT-WHOI program in physical oceanography, but I have an internship there for January and will decide then whether that is what I would rather pursue.
ttfn

Grad School Apps

Hi all,
If anyone reading this would like to comment on the graduate programs I am examining, please do so in the comments. I am interested in statistical/continuum mechanics, particularly fluid dynamics, colloids, and granular media. I am willing to come at research from the fields of math, physics, or oceanography. Here are the programs I am considering at the moment:
Physics: Duke, Brandeis, UMass Amherst, UChicago, NYU, Clark, Emory, Georgetown U
Applied Physics: Harvard
Mathematics: RPI, NCSU, NYU
Applied Mathematics: Columbia, Brown, NJIT (mathematical sciences, joint program with Rutgers)
Oceanography: MIT-WHOI, looking for another

I want to get this down to 5 math programs, 5 physics, and up to 2 oceanography to actually apply to.

Lehigh REU 2011 Results (Janus Ellipsoids)

Hi all,
Once again I don't really have time to write much (unpacking, repacking, GREs, family visits, you know). So, I will direct you firstly to the paper that the Lehigh research group is working on publishing. It's up at the ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2571 (not my own project, but it's what inspired all the work I did [and yes, I helped write it, woo having my name on there]).

From what was 90% my own sweat tears and blood, here's the poster on my project:

Hopefully it'll be a paper some day, but the grad student who's theoretically been working on writing it hasn't responded to my emails this week, so I don't know what's happening there. Oh well. I'm planning to take the poster to the March APS meeting, so if you have questions that aren't easy to ask in writing, you could ask me then.
ttfn

Lehigh REU research: a Brief summary

Below you'll find the 'abstract' we'll be sending to the NSF summarizing my summer work. I did some other stuff besides what's mentioned, and later I'll give more details, but for now I just want to put something up before I leave tomorrow.

Monte Carlo Simulations

A Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is a method commonly used in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.  While in general MC is just a sampling scheme, it is normally used for importance sampling.  The MC method starts from a given 'position' and takes a random walk, returning information from wherever it travels.  With importance sampling, MC does not take a purely random walk, but instead will take a random step and then check the final position against some requirement. If the final position meets the requirements, the information for that position is recorded as data and a new step is tried. Otherwise, the simulation goes back and takes a new random step.

Pontification, Pondering, and Some Things to Read

Hello,
I know I usually write about science. But today I spent a long lunch break discussing religion with one of my colleagues. And one reason she kept bringing up for her faith in God guiding her actions in life is the desire to work towards God's good, because what He considers good may not make sense to us flawed humans.

Janus Particles and Spheres

So, posting about the project right away didn't happen because deciding on the project didn't happen and then coding didn't happen. But now it all has!

I'm working in theoretical statistical mechanics with Professor Jim Gunton at Lehigh. More specifically, this summer the research group is studying anisotropic (orientation-dependent) Janus particles.

Lehigh Physics REU Day 1

Hi all,
Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but finals happened. Now I have moved in to my dorm at Lehigh for the summer REU program. While I haven't actually met my adviser yet, I have found relevant offices, buildings, shops, etc. I also got an ID and met most of the other students in the program. It looks, oddly enough, like we have more women than men. Which is not good in terms of showering, but is good in terms of the future of physics (at least in my mind).
Anyway, I will actually get started tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow night I will describe my project (aka after I figure out what I'm doing I'll put it here so I don't forget the end goals).
I hope everyone out there is managing the summer job thing alright.

Consider Quebec

Having returned from l'Universite de Sherbrooke in Quebec province in Canada and visited my friends at a couple of American schools, I have a few things to say about the education system. Primarily that I like Quebec's better.