SAS / Data4Good – Jay S & Evan Z – CA Work Experience Program

Day 8

As today was the last day of WEP, I was glad I could meet with and thank both Dr. Karmakar and Dr. Jiang for all their help. With Dr. Jiang, we explored further the mathematical side of optimization, as she explained linear and non-linear programming and multi-dimensional problems, along with showing me some of the data analytics done before optimization. Afterwards, I met with Dr. Karmakar as a final check-in on the whole experience. Although operations research and optimization were unfamiliar fields I was introduced to during WEP, I had a great time and am grateful to both Dr. Karmakar and Dr. Jiang for hosting and teaching me these past two weeks.

Linear programming example:

Day 8, Thank you

Today was the last day of my WEP. Our final TEAMS meeting was held much later than usual, 3:00 pm, due to Dr. Summerville having a long day of meetings. Today was a nice and easy wrap up where I showed her the result of me cleaning up all the data and then turning the paper which summarized everything I had did and worked on for her over the past 2 weeks. After the logistics, I gave my thanks for her taking time everyday to give me this work experience and then she encouraged me to reach out to her whenever I just wanted any help or to chat. I would have loved it if this experience was in-person, but it being virtual was still a very unique and precious experience.

Day 7

Today in our teams meeting, I showed Dr. Summerville the data on maternal milk and formula and then asked her questions about the research paper that I would turn in. Dr. Summerville clarified many things and then assigned me to transpose the huge dataset that had more than 10,000 cells. I knew it would be a daunting tasks to I made sure to start as soon as possible. I quickly had many questions so I was able to clarify everything through email.

Day 7

Today, Dr. Karmakar showed me various examples of data visualization to explain how interactive visualization helps in identifying patterns, discovering new trends, and understanding complex concepts. She started with a simple report on animal shelter employees, showing the variety of ways they can present information based on the client’s requests. Then, she brought up a more complex example on water bottle supply chain optimization and explained a couple of the response variables they consider, such as costs and KPI. She wrapped up by showing me some code used to create the data visualizations in SAS Studio. After asking a few questions about the data visualization process, Dr. Karmakar had me come up with some more questions on optimization for tomorrow.

Animal Shelter:

Supply Chain:

Code:

Day 6

On day six, Dr. Karmakar was on campus, so she gave me a tour of her building. After introducing me to a few of her coworkers, she showed me the library, some workspaces, the cafeteria, and the outdoor area. Afterwards, I shared with her my literature review and, in preparation for the next day, she asked me to research a bit on data visualization and to create a Linkedin account.

Coworkers:

R Building:

Day 6

On day six, I got a virtual tour of the building Dr. Summerville and her team resided. They were on the 3rd floor because their usual fifth floor was being renovated. I got to see the huge cafeteria and just get a sense of the personality of the people at SAS from the many paintings and even the statues of Yoda and Darth Vader. It is just a shame that I was not able to see it in person. My assignment for this day was to write a paper which summarized everything that I had done before, very similar to what we have been doing with the blogs.

Day 5

On the fifth day, Dr. Karmakar had some conflicts and wasn’t feeling the best, so we decided to take a more relaxed day without meeting. I spent the day editing and finalizing my literature review, and by Dr. Karmakar’s recommendation, added a literature summary table to supplement my review.

Literature summary table:

Day 5

Day 5 started with another Teams meeting. In the meeting, I shared with Dr. Summerville the information I found on raw data and for-profit milk banks. For the milk banks, I found two banks under the company Prolacta Bioscience. These banks sell human milk to hospitals and also pay mothers who donate. The company researches and develops human milk-based nutritional products that would not be possible with a non-profit business model. In terms of raw data, I could not find any of the CSV files as all the papers only had tables and graphs which are considered summaries and are too simplified to actually do any data analysis on them. My assignment was to find raw data on the differences of the nutritional value of formula versus human milk. I also needed to find how much the for-profit milk banks make.

Day 4

On the fourth day, I started with a Teams call to show the list of research papers about Bacillus in human milk donations. From the papers, I learned that Bacillus cereus is the most common bacteria that causes milk donations to be disposed of. During the meeting, Dr. Summerville explain to me that the papers all had summaries of data and what we needed was to look for raw data so we could analyze it. She said that raw data would be a csv (comma separated values) file which I would then need to convert to excel. My assignment for the day was to look for this raw data and also to research milk banks that were for-profit instead of nonprofit and just learn how they functioned.

Day 4

On the fourth day of my WEP, I started with a meeting with Dr. Karmakar and Dr. Jiang on the studies I found on cell culture mediums to see if any would be viable as a demo sample dataset. After discussing what could be possible in their allotted time, Dr. Karmakar asked me to research how to organize, and then write a comprehensive literature review on my research throughout the week to present to her team.

Literature review: