Variety of Opportunities

Hello!! My name is Devika Godbole and I am a math major from Dallas, Texas. I decided to
partake in research through FRI because I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, career wise,
and wanted to explore a variety of opportunities. I chose the DIY Diagnostics stream because it
seemed interdisciplinary in that it had projects that involved computer science and data analysis
in addition to the usual wet lab bio/chem projects. During the first semester, you will be building
basic skills through both wet lab and coding skill developments. Although I enjoyed both, I found
myself gravitating towards the coding related app assignments. I am the most excited by
computer science involving diagnostics because I think that it would be stupid if we as a society
did not take full advantage of the technological world we live in.

The project that I have been
working on, keystroke analytics for Parkinson’s detection, combines many of technology and
data elements. The project involves collecting the keystroke log from the typing of patients with
Parkinson’s disease, and then analyzing, visualizing, and understanding the data. This project
has allowed me to learn how to ask questions about data, how to use R Studio, how to interact
with human subjects, and how to effectively work in a team (just to name a few things!). This
summer, I was able to work on this project thanks to a summer research fellowship and it was
then that I really grew and understood the nature of research. Some of my favorite parts of lab
include having to redo an entire experiment because we did not check the incubator
temperature (was not pleased at the time), Wacky Wednesday huddle meetings, sitting on the
leathery blue rolly chair, and doing the DNA extraction lab.