Hello from Madison Wisconsin! I have just finished my first full week here in Madison and so far I am enjoying myself. This first week has been pretty slow: I've been getting to know people in the lab, getting acquainted with the town, settling into my living space, and reading an endless list of papers.
There are a couple things I want to mention first that pertain to the CREU project. First, I heard back from Grace Hopper and they accepted my poster proposal, unfortunately Tapia and Grace Hopper happen at the same time and we have already accepted the poster presentation at Tapia so I had to decline the offer from Grace Hopper. Secondly, Erick and I did eventually finish the final report for the CREU project and it is attached below.
Moving on to this summer, I will continue working with Erick and Professor Brumberg in conjunction with Professor Beckage to finish our proposal and hopefully write a joint paper, but I will also be working on a new project with Professor Beckage that she is currently receiving funding for with Professor Austerweil at the University of Wisconsin. So, I will do my best to schedule my time so I am working on both projects and Professor Beckage suggested I try a 30-70 split (70 for the new project). I am not sure if this will be enough time committed to the CREU extension (I may make it a 40-60 split) but I will do my best to get in enough time for useful growth. One aspect of being in Madison is that work on the CREU project will be easier because I am in direct daily contact with Professor Beckage, so this should help the pace and quality of work for this summer.
I have not been in touch with Professor Brumberg and Erick since I left, but I am planning on emailing them this week to work out a weekly meeting time over Skype to keep in contact with them and also keep me accountable for my end of the project.
This coming work week I will be doing some more reading for my DREU project and meeting with Professor Austerweil, I will be catching up with the CREU project and what I need to do next, and I will be meeting several new students and professors that are part of the PREP (Psychology Research Experience Program) summer program. I am not part of this program, however the advisers for the program are allowing me to join in their activities since I am here by myself. So, I think this will give me a chance to really branch out in this new field and meet some amazing new people.
Lastly, one of the requirements for the DREU program is to create a web page for my project that can later be hosted on the CRA-W website, so I have hosted a web page on GitHub (previously used for a Software Engineering class group project ... oh well!) to hold my content for that project. Below is a link to the page, and I am thinking that later I will move the content back here to stay consistent.
CREU Final Report: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/953dc3_5c77be77c4434dbe8dae29213b93edd7.pdf
DREU Blog: https://rebekahmanweiler.github.io/