PDA with TDA

Hi to all interested in Topological Data Analysis, and to all those simply interested in Donohoue lab updates. My name is Cade Francour, and I'm a rising junior in Deanna Donohoue's research lab, beginning this summer. I, along with fellow researcher Katie Kitzinger, am examining a massive NASA atmospheric chemistry data set (known as ATom). We are using Topological Data Analysis (TDA) to essentially turn the data points from this set into a surface, and, by dissecting structures that form in the data, hope to find some interesting patterns and general interconnectedness between various points and parameters within the data.

This first week of research has largely been focused on developing our understanding of the coding language that we are using (R) and strengthening our background of what exactly topology is and how it applies to big data sets. Lots of time has been spent with various R tutorials, as well as listening to online lectures on topology and its data analytical applications. We've also begun to examine some basics of atmospheric chemistry, so when we eventually do get to examining the NASA data set, we'll have a greater understanding of what we are trying to find and what we are (hopefully) going to see.

Overall, I'm very excited to see where this project will go, as it is definitely exploratory, and could yield some very interesting results if things go well. This is an excellent opportunity to hone my coding and data science skills, as well as work on science communication with talks within the chemistry department and the summer research community at large. I'm hopeful and eager to continue working through this innovative and complex project for the rest of the summer and possibly beyond.