Ebonii Anderson

Beaumont, TX

Advisor: Dr. Miguel Argaez

Ebonii graduated Magna Cum Laude from Spelman College. She started graduate work in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University in the fall 2000. Ebonii was interested in participating in the AGEP Summer Program because of the great opportunity to adjust to Rice's campus and the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department before school started.

Advisor: Dr. Joan Strassmann

A student at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Liz joined the program to gain more experience conducting research and to interact with prominent professors in her field. Over the summer, Liz researched why stingless bee females allow the queen to reproduce the males even though it is genetically advantageous for workers to lay the male eggs.

Advisor: Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah

Daniel is an undergraduate student at Rice University pursing a degree in civil engineering. His summer project involved analyzing different frequencies of a three-story model made of steel. The first part of the analysis was done on the computer to find theoretical results and the latter part was hands on.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Justine is a senior mathematics major at Spelman College. Her summer projects involved writing Matlab programs to determine protein structures, the error in L-one, L-two, and L-infinity, and what happens during the first couple of seconds in a dragster race.

Advisor: Dr. Michael Stern

Abena attends Stanford University were she is pursing a BS in biology. Over the summer, Abena researched whether nuclei proliferation occurred in Drosophila that were mutated and therefore, had a thickened perineural glia. She also worked on finding polymorphisms in Drosophila to use as markers in the mapping of an EAG suppresser gene.

Advisor: Dr. Michael Barry

Samuel is pursing a Ph.D. in biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University. He joined the AGEP Summer Program because he wanted to mentor and inspire undergraduates in his field of study. He also used the program as a chance to gain more skills in teaching while working on research for his Ph.D.

Advisor: Dr. Illya Hicks and Dr. Miguel Argaez

Anabel attends University of Texas - Pan American were she is pursing a degree in mathematics. Her summer project involved finding the advantages and disadvantages of the simplex method and the interior- point method in constrained optimization. Anabel says she enjoyed the program because she left with a wealth of knowledge about graduate school.

Advisor: Dr. Miguel Argaez

Quahtemoc is pursuing a mathematics degree from Drexel University. Over the summer, Quahtemoc investigated the convergence of the conjugate gradient method of solving the linear system Ax=b.

José De La Pena

Advisor: Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah

José is an undergraduate at Rice University in the Civil Engineering Department. His summer project involved earthquake simulations performed on a steel frame to determine its natural frequencies. He then compared them with those found using computer programs.

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

Solitaire is a graduate student at Rice University in the Bioengineering Department. She participated in the AGEP Summer Program because it was an opportunity to broaden her experience through seminars, and to mold her professional development. Solitaire's summer project involved assessing the effect of shear stress exposure on matrix production by vascular smooth muscle cells.

Advisor: Dr. Joseph Cavallaro

Darshan is an electrical engineering student at Case Western Reserve University. During the AGEP Summer Program, Darshan worked on the hardware implementation of various algorithms as part of a multi-user detection scheme for wireless communications. The implementation was done on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs).

Advisor: Nancy Glenn

Musie is a graduate student at Rice University pursing his Ph.D. in biostatistics. He found the AGEP Summer Program to be a great asset in preparing him for his first year of graduate school. His research project this summer involved clinical trials and HIV.

Advisor: Dr. Keith Baggerly

Nancy is a Ph.D. candidate in the Statistics Department at Rice University. The AGEP Summer Program gave Nancy the unique opportunity to learn about the duties of a professor, both inside and outside the classroom. This summer her research involved developing a statistical procedure to construct confidence intervals in order to estimate population parameters.

Advisor: Dr. Liliana Borcea

Genetha is a graduate student in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department at Rice University. This summer Genetha worked on her thesis research on electrical impedance tomography. Genetha's interest in participating in the AGEP Summer Program stemmed from hearing about the program from other students in her department.

Advisor: Dr. Yin Zhang

Roy is a Rice University undergraduate student majoring in electrical engineering. His summer project involved learning Fortran to implement the storage of sparse matrices and developing a method to covert dense matrices to sparse matrices. Roy used this to work on a maximal out graph theory problem which could be made more efficient by exploiting sparsity.

Advisor: Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah

Christy is pursing a Ph.D. in civil engineering at Rice University. This summer she studied for her preliminary exams which were taken in August. Christy was interested in participating in the AGEP Summer Program to meet graduate students in other departments. This summer she enjoyed the interactions with other students and faculty who encouraged her to participate in the program again.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Justin is pursing a degree in chemical engineering at Morehouse College. His summer project involved fluorination of nanotubes for incorporation into an aluminum composite. Justin enjoyed the AGEP Summer Program because of exposure to a culturally diverse setting.

Diane Jamrog

Advisor: Dr. Yin Zhang

Diane is working toward her Ph.D. in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University. Diane's summer research involved plots of objective functions for development of an algorithm to solve the molecular replacement problem from X-ray crystallography used to determine protein structures.

Advisor: Dr. Robert Nowak

DeAundrae attends Prairie View A&M University pursing a degree in electrical engineering. DeAundrae joined the AGEP Summer Program to learn more about research and graduate school. His summer project involved studying digital signal processing. Using Matlab, he researched time-frequency analysis.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Hazel attends Darthmouth College with interests in math and science. Her summer projects involved writing Matlab programs to determine protein structures, the error in L-one, L-two, and L-infinity, and what happens during the first couple of seconds of a dragster race.

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele

Jarret is pursing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Rice University. This summer his project involved linear and non-linear systems of equations. Matlab programs were used to determine trajectories, angular momentum, energy and eccentricity of different orbits. For Jarret, the AGEP Summer Program was a great way to get a head start as a first-year graduate student at Rice.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Francisco is a graduate student in the Chemistry Department at Rice University. This summer Francisco worked on self-assembled molecular electronic devices. He did not regret his decision to participate in the AGEP Summer Program instead of being employed by a fishing industry in Alaska.

Advisor: Dr. Ed Nikonowicz

Erin is in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology Department pursing a Ph.D. in biophysics at Rice University. Erin feels that the AGEP Summer Program was a great opportunity to discuss diversity issues in a constructive and non-antagonistic setting. Her research involves synthesizing RNA molecules with special modifications. The resulting molecule will be studied with NMR spectroscopy.

Advisor: Dr. John Dobelman

Alena is pursing a Ph.D. in statistics at Rice University with a focus on financial statistics. Her summer project involved learning various computer programs related to statistics. Alena became familiar with issues she would face as a minority in her field. She thought the program was great because she met other students in situations similar to her own.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Kianna is an undergraduate at Clark Atlanta University majoring in mathematics. Her summer projects involved writing Matlab programs to determine protein structures, the error in L-one, L-two, and L-infinity, and what happens during the first couple of seconds of a dragster race. Kianna has also done research at the University of Michigan.

Advisor: Dr. Athanasios Antoulas

LeMar was an undergraduate at Morehouse College in the Mathematics Department. He joined the program because he wanted to conduct research in a lab setting at Rice University. His summer project involved regeneration of artificial cartilage.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Meisha is a graduate student at Rice University in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department. Meisha became interested in the program because she want to work with undergraduates and encourage them to attend graduate school. Her summer project involved working with nanotube and ABS composites.

Advisor: Dr. Devika Subramanian

Paul is a computer science major at Rice University. His summer project involved solving mechanical and design problems of a robot. Paul joined the program because he had trouble with self discipline, and he thought the program would be a great way to improve in this area.

Advisor: Dr. Nathaniel Dean

Timothy is pursing a Ph.D. in computational and applied mathematics (CAAM) at Rice University. He became interested in participating in the AGEP Summer Program because of the opportunity to continue his Ph.D. research as well as participate in a mentoring role to high school and undergraduate students.

Advisor: Dr. Dale Sawyer

Craig is a senior at University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in geological engineering. Craig's summer project involved comparing the Baikal Rift region in Siberia with the Valles Marineris region on Mars. The regions were spatially analyzed primarily using topographical data.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Juan is an undergraduate student at Rice University majoring in mechanical engineering. Juan's summer project involved hypervelocity impact testing to determine possible shielding applications on satellites and possibly NASA's X-38. Juan joined the program to explore the possibilities of going to graduate school.

Advisor: Dr. Bonnie Bartel

Illeana is a undergraduate at Rice University majoring in biology. Her summer project involved analyses of hormone metabolism in the Arabidopsis Thaliana plant.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Kimberly is a graduate student at Rice University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Her summer projects involved writing Matlab programs to determine protein structures, the error in L-one, L-two, and L-infinity, and what happens during the first couple of seconds of a dragster race.

Advisor: Dr. Robert Cartwright

Valdemar is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin pursing a degree in computer science. He became interested in the program because of the opportunity to learn what graduate research is like, and also to learn the possibilities of attending graduate school. His main research focus this summer was designing computer programs.

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele

Pablo is a undergraduate at Recinto University de Mayaquez in Puerto Rico majoring in mechanical engineering. His summer project involved working with linear and non-linear systems of equations. Matlab programs were used to determine trajectories, angular momentum, energy and eccentricity of different orbits.

Advisor: Dr. Tayfun E. Tezduyar

Victor is a Rice University graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department. His summer project involved calculating the flow around an army cargo aircraft and a parotrooper separating from it. Victor also created a new cargo model and calculated its flow.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Ricardo is pursing his doctor of philosophy degree in electrical engineering at Rice University. He was interested in the AGEP program because he wanted to learn more about minority and diversity issues. Ricardo's summer research consisted of developing robust and efficient numerical algorithms for the design of optimal digital filters.

Advisor: Dr. Enrique Barrera

Jesus is an undergraduate at Rice University pursing a degree in mechanical engineering. For Jesus, the AGEP program provided the perfect opportunity to work on summer research while getting an accurate taste of graduate student life. His summer project involved the use of nanotube reinforced composites as possible shielding materials for the international space station.

Advisor: Dr. Sue Gibson

Daniel is pursing a biochemistry degree at Rice University. His summer project involved mapping and cloning the plant sugar-insensitive gene 5k591 through series of PCR's and gel electropheresis reactions.

Advisor: Dr. Dan Sorensen

Rachel is a Ph.D. candidate in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University. Participation in the AGEP program assisted her in the development of researching and mentoring skills. Rachel's research this summer involved protein structure analysis using the singular value decomposition.

Advisor: Dr. Richard Tapia

Donald is a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) Department. He joined the AGEP Summer Program to interact with individuals in a culturally diverse environment while receiving the financial support needed to continue with his thesis research. His summer research project was the development of object-oriented interior-point optimization software for geophysical applications.

Advisor: Dr. Angelo Miele

Powtawche is a graduate student at Rice University in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department. This summer her project involved linear and non-linear systems of equations. Matlab programs were used to determine trajectories, angular momentum, energy and eccentricity of different orbits.