Sydney S
- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Expertise

computation, hurricanes, climate change resilience, probability and statistics

Bio

I'm a graduate student researching how to improve hurricane forecasts. I'm passionate about computer programming, risk analysis, fluid dynamics, and climate change. I have had some wonderful mentoring opportunities in the past and am excited to join Polygence as a mentor. For fun, I like to watch TV, bake, and play board games.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Data Visualization for Hurricane Trends

There is a lot of interest in estimating how hurricanes are going to change in the future, and what trends have been like in the past. This project would involve reading some of the current research on hurricane trends and creating simple, legible visuals or infographics to help make that information more accessible to the general public.

Climate Change Risk Assessment for a City or Town

Most research on climate change tends to draw conclusions about changes expected for a large region, but planning and resiliency typically occurs at a much more local level. This project would consider the risks for a particular area and consider solutions that similar regions are adopting.

Coding skills

MATLAB, Python

Teaching experience

I been a TA for a MATLAB-based numerical methods class for several years. I have taught and mentored rising seniors in high school through a program where I gave lectures, designed homework assignments, prepared lab assignments, and mentored students through a lab experiment and a large final project. I have also mentored college students who were conducting research in labs on campus and helped them with elements of their graduate school applications.

Credentials

Work experience

NASA (2017 - 2017)

Intern

Education

University of California San Diego (UCSD)

BS Bachelor of Science (2013)

Structural Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MS Master of Science (2016)

Mechanical Engineering