A Great Start!

Hello! I am Katie Kitzinger, and I am a rising junior in the research lab of Deanna Donohoue. This very exciting research opportunity, during which I have the privilege of working alongside Cade Francour, focuses mainly on Topological Data Analysis (TDA) and specifically how it can be applied to atmospheric chemistry data gathered by NASA’s ATom Mission.

This first week of research has been filled with studying and lots of learning! In order to prepare ourselves for the challenge of analyzing the large data set gathered by ATom, we committed most of our time to three main goals: learning the basics of TDA, practicing programming in the coding system R, and increasing our understanding of atmospheric chemistry concepts.

The week contained triumphs as well as frustrations. Throughout the week, we were able to progress significantly in our R programming skills; however, we ran into some frustrations when we tried to use R-studios to run a TDA test.

Overall, this week has made me even more curious about the powerful applications of TDA. I am looking forward to learning even more and increasing my abilities in the coming weeks. Specifically, I am interested to see how all of the skills we are developing (R programming, TDA, and data sorting) will come together in the end to reach the goal of this project.