Shaira outside Mysore Palace in Mysore, Karnataka (India)

Shaira (on left) with colleague

Week 1: All Sorts of Introductions 
 
Namaste from India! I’m Shaira, a rising junior at Harvard College
studying Economics with a minor in Global Health and Health Policy. In the few free days before starting my summer internship, I nearly forgot I was here—in Bangalore, southern India—to do research on protein intake and pregnancy outcomes at what had been called the Johns Hopkins of India: St. John’s Research
Institute at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences. Instead, I at first felt like I was here to survive a video game. If a hole wasn’t burnt through me by the piercing stares I got on the street because I was visibly different, and I wasn’t hit by a car while scattering like a little fish through the tidal waves of traffic (among other unusual circumstances), perhaps I would make it out of here alive. These are the honest chronicles of my experience in India—as a woman, a researcher, and a first-timer.

 * * *
The first thing I learned about India was just how far it really is
from Los Angeles, California (my hometown). You can, of course, trace the path across a map, but the distance means very little until you move the miles yourself. On the afternoon of June 13, I started my journey at the Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angeles, California. 

Over the Pacific and the Indian, through Tokyo and Singapore, I
ultimately made it onto my final flight to Bangalore. Ironically, by the time I stepped foot onto the last flight, what was only a four hour ride seemed endless. As we flew over the Bay of Bengal and at last descended onto the subcontinent, I looked out the window at the expansive landmass wondering what it would be like—sand what I had gotten myself into. 

Hello fellow Scientistas! My name is Juliet Snyder and I am a rising sophomore at Harvard College. Although I am a Harvard girl, I am spending my summer in sunny San Diego working at the University of California, at a Pathology lab. San Diego is home for me - I made the decision to ignore my Freshman advisor and go home to do research instead of staying on campus to do research. Normally I am one for listening to authorities - well that isn’t completely true - but this time realized that sometimes you just have to go with your gut. I am glad I did because I can honestly say that I wake up every morning incredibly excited for work and for the project that I am working on. But I am getting ahead of myself. 

Hey you! Yeah. You! Thanks for checking out my blog. I’m really excited to have this opportunity to tell the Scientista community about my research internship studying gold nanoparticles in
Germany this summer.

Before I tell you about my research, I want to introduce myself. My name is Pin-Wen, and I’m a rising junior at Harvard College studying electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). I’ve always imagined engineering as a special operations task force, charged with the mission of strategizing solutions to any problem.

As I grew older, solving problems, from math equations to a broken window- became even more interesting, but the role of an engineer became more and more complex. 

Hello Scientistas!

I am excited to share my summer research experience
with you! My name is Natalie Punt and I am a soon-to-be second year veterinarian student at Western University College of Veterinarian Medicine in Pomona, California.

Being a veterinarian student is a challenging and rewarding
endeavor. As a future veterinarian I am responsible for the health of every species but one. Because veterinarian medicine naturally 

My name is Rabeea Ahmed and I am from Islamabad, Pakistan. This summer, I am very excited to be working at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland!

As an undergraduate student of Computer Science and
Astrophysics, I am enthralled by the power of computers in data-analysis, and fascinated by astronomy as a science that uncovers the deepest mysteries of our universe. My work at the STScI resolves around combining these two fields as I work on data-quality assessment for the Hubble Legacy Archive.

The Hubble Space Telescope - launched in 1990 - has collected a great volume of useful ultra-violet data throughout its life. This data will form the basis of many studies of our

By Riana Balahadia

Hey everyone! I’m Riana, a rising junior in Kirkland House. I'm very excited to be blogging on Scientista. Here are some tidbits about me: I concentrate in Human Evolutionary Biology with a secondary in Global Health & Health Policy. And yes, I do ride the struggle bus of endeavoring Harvard pre-meds! During the semester I enjoy singing with my a cappella group, the Veritones and planning activities for Harvard Philippine Forum and Undergraduate Global Health Forum. This summer, I’m staying on campus as part of the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) Program hosted by the Global Health Institute. I will be working with Dr. Janina R. Galler on the Barbados Nutrition Study at Judge Baker's Children Center, with my focus on linking nutrition and epigenetics to mental health. But before I go more into that, let me tell you about why I'm super excited for this job.

My true academic passions lie in nutrition and chronic diseases, particularly in developing countries.

By Stephanie Wang

Hey all! I'm glad to have the chance, as I begin my new summer blog series, "Experimenting With the Life of a Scientist(a)" to introduce myself. I'll be living the life of a researcher this summer, going to lab full-time--five, sometimes six days a week-- in search of the potential mechanisms behind muscle aging. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

My name is Stephanie Wang. I love walking barefoot in the grass, eating fruit, and playing frisbee (the simple things in life). I am concentrating in Chemical and Physical Biology, which gives me ample space to explore all the hard sciences. Crazy as it is for me to realize, I will be starting my senior year in a few months.

Hi! My name is Amy Beth Prager. I’m spending my summer in the mathematics department of MIT. I am pursuing coursework in applied numerical methods, taking a class known as 18.085, Computational Science and Engineering.

Why am I doing this? Because I believe that great power lies in mathematics. My goal in learning these advanced techniques is to better carry out my own work and research. Applied and computational mathematics can solve problems that would otherwise be intractable and provide insights that are unimaginable without modern methods. For example, in our first week of class, we discussed the science of weather forecasting. While it may seem shocking in the internet age, it was not too long ago (and within my lifetime!) that weather could not be accurately predicted beyond a day or so. In the 1960s, just as computers were becoming capable of complex calculations, an MIT professor