Author: Vinith Upadhya

Today was the last day of our work experience program and the first day we actually went to the office! Finding the building was a little bit tough but the experience was well worth-it. It was nice to meet Mr. Self in-person, and we even got to meet his dog (who is older than me)! I feel like the presentation itself went really well as we were able to tie everything back to our central claim and Mr. Self even said he could use some of our research in his future work. This was a great opportunity for me to experience what a job in “research” really involves, and I hope the skills I gained stay with me.

Today we met up in person to go over the presentation. Since the CMS conference room was full, we decided to meet up in the library. Doing a mock presentation was really helpful as we were able to clarify any miscommunications. Furthermore, we timed ourselves and made the whole presentation more concise. The day went pretty good and we’re definitely ready for our final presentation tomorrow!

Today we did some final work on the presentation to get it ready for a practice-presentation tomorrow. One of the biggest things I did today was going through the presentation to see if we had any conflicts. Sometimes multiple people did the same research and included it in different slides; therefore, we could make the presentation more concise by not repeating the same ideas. Overall, it was another successful day!

Today started off with another quick check-in with Mr. Self and then we got straight to work. We started on the Powerpoint which we will use to present our research next Thursday. While working on the presentation, I found something weird in our research: two of our sources had directly conflicting information! I had to look into both sources and also use additional information to figure out which was more accurate; fortunately, the effort was well worth it and I was able to figure out the issue (one of the sources cited evidence from a study that didn’t exist).

As it was our last day of research, I decided to complete any unfinished trains of thought and do make sure everything made sense. One fun story from today was that Kyler and I met up at CA to compare our research (as we were focusing on two different parts of the topic). It was nice to compare as we both had general knowledge about each other’s parts so we could ask educated questions but it was still great for focusing on which parts of the research would be important to include in a short presentation.

Today started out with a quick check-in with our mentor, Mr. Self. We readjusted our schedule based on the work we had already completed and planned logistics for the upcoming days. After the meeting, I continued diving into research about the direct and indirect effects of Permethrin on humans. One of the biggest difficulties that I came across was trying to find unbiased information as most websites were either pro-permethrin (if they were trying to sell a product using it) or anti-permethrin (just general anti-pesticide sentiments). It was fun to connect research about the environmental impacts to the human impacts as it gave me ideas for our eventual presentation. Overall, I’m excited to do more research on the topic and see if I can break through the wall of bias.

Today we split up into 3 groups to do more in-depth research into specific parts of our research question. Miles and I worked together to find out more about the direct and indirect impacts of Permethrin on humans. This project is so interesting to me due to the lack of easily-accessible information about permethrin. Instead of only using the first few sources that comes up, which works for a lot of school projects, I have to build off of information I find in research papers and journals to make a case about the effects of permethrin. Trying to translate from fancy science-talk to something succinct to put in a presentation is a great skill I’ve learned today.

Today was our first day working with Mr. Self at Vector Textiles. Our goal throughout these two weeks is to research the environmental impacts of a certain chemical commonly found in mosquito nets: permethrin. As Vector Textiles’ mosquito net repels mosquitoes without the use of chemicals, it would prevent any adverse effects of permethrin on the ecosystem. It is our job, however, to find out more specific information about this chemical’s effects on Sub-Saharan Africa. We spent the day planning our schedule for the upcoming two weeks along with doing some initial research about the chemical. Overall, I am super excited to do more in-depth research about these environmental impacts!