Theo Chiang

At the time I’m writing this, we have about two days left in the program and the work is almost done.

 August 10, 2021

At the time I’m writing this, we have about two days left in the program and the work is almost done. Tomorrow, we are presenting our work to other groups as a final nice event to wrap up the summer.

I had the privilege this summer of working with Anya and Adarsh on our main project and data collection. Our project is called “Machine Learning Models and Logistic Regression Analyses to Develop a Comprehensive Understanding of Extinction Risk For Marine Animal Phyla Across the Paleozoic”. We decided that although extinction has been studied comprehensively in relation to other traits, extinction has been historically volatile, and thus needs more time specific research. Therefore, we studied ecological and biological factors across a long period of time — The Paleozoic Era.

After getting our groups, we immediately began collecting data for the program. Although it would have been great to have been able to measure real life specimens, researching online was fun as well. With Image J, we measured hundreds of specimens. Looking at all these esoteric, interesting taxonomic groups was awesome. It felt good to contribute to a larger, academic cause such as the Stanford Earth body size dataset.

One of my favorite parts of my time at SEYI was the literature we reviewed. I won’t mention the title of the book (spoiler reasons), but I think it did a good job of being interesting and explaining key concepts of the program. It raised many ideas/questions for me to ponder in the future such as the mechanics of time perception among all organisms.

Overall, I received so much valuable experience from all the discussions, lectures, coding, and other work. Thanks to Pedro, my group members, Jen Saltzmann, and everyone else who made this internship possible. It’s been a really unique experience for me and it has given me key skills and experiences that I’ve been looking for. Hope to see you guys soon for AGU!

I am excited to begin my own research soon with my fellow paleontology enthusiasts. I cannot wait to dive deeper into this field.

The SEYI internship has been an unparalleled experience for me thus far.

 July 7, 2021

The SEYI internship has been an unparalleled experience for me thus far. From programming to stats to paleontology to philosophy, I feel that SEYI really fulfills so many aspects of my interests.

The first week of the internship was largely dedicated towards getting us familiarized with the main theme of the SEYI Biodiversity internship: Size. In groups, we examined and measured a hypothetical bed of brachiopods and from there, extrapolated these measurements to determine a variety of separate variables. During this week, I also received my copy of “Why Size Matters” by John Bonner which explained the importance of any organism’s body size in spheres such as physics, structure, and relativity. Both these experiences amazed me because I had no idea such a simple trait as “size” could dominate so many aspects of life (if not every single detail). I already have so many ideas for potential research questions just from discussions I’ve had with both Pedro and my fellow interns. I also really appreciate how we get a couple guest speakers a week that discuss various concepts such as geomorphology and renewable energies. I always look forward to being exposed to new ideas and fields, especially when they are presented by people who clearly love their work.

In these past three weeks, we have learned how to analyze data using two programs: The language R, and Image J. The task of learning a whole new coding language was daunting, but my apprehension dissipated immediately. The learning process overall was very enjoyable and the virtual environment of Rstudio is very easy to use. With image j, we revisited the brachiopod bed and were able to not only measure each specimen again, digitally, but analyze the resulting data in R

I am excited to begin my own research soon with my fellow paleontology enthusiasts. I cannot wait to dive deeper into this field.