User:Dakota.Sullivan

Personal Info

Dakota Sullivan is a Computational Mathematics and Social Welfare and Justice double major at Marquette University.

Research Topic

Using statistical surrogates to estimate the behavior of storm surge during a hurricane or tropical storm. See here for more details.

Milestones

Weekly milestones can be found on our main project page, located here.

Daily Log

Week 1 (6/1 - 6/5)

Monday, June 1

Attended introductory session; learned about REU program
Met with Dr. Spiller and research group members
Attended Systems lab orientation with Dr. Dennis Brylow
Took pre-REU NSF survey
Began introductory reading on Gaussian Stochastic Process

Tuesday, June 2

Toured campus
Filed paperwork with HR
Attended library resources orientation with Heather James
Met with Dr. Spiller

Wednesday, June 3

Installed Python
Met with Dr. Spiller to review Gaussian Stochastic Process
Met with Dr. Brylow to learn about Marquette email and time keeping
Tested optimization routines in Python

Thursday, June 4

Determined routine for plotting in Python
Attended talk by Dr. Factor
Met with Dr. Spiller
Determined research goals and project timeline
Continued developing optimization routine and plotting algorithms

Friday, June 5

Met with research group to finalize optimization algorithm
Reviewed objectives of project
Documented Goals and Milestones
Downloaded LaTex

Week 2 (6/5 - 6/12)

Monday, June 8

Met with Dr. Spiller
Created methods to begin modeling maximum likelihood equation
Developed a plot of our approximation in Python

Tuesday, June 9

Created maximum likelihood function
Worked through difficulties with singularity in our matrices
Plotted approximation of theta optimization

Wednesday, June 10

Corrected errors in the maximum likelihood function
Determined optimal theta value
Modified maximum likelihood equation to optimize multiple variables

Thursday, June 11

Developed variance function
Listened to sample presentation by Dr. Factor
Met with Dr. Spiller, updated her on our progress and discussed paper by Westerink et al.

Friday, June 12

Modified code to account for all approximated variables
Tested our approximation methods for other functions
Began reading Westerink et al.

Week 3

Monday, June 15

Read through research paper (Westerink et al.)

Tuesday, June 16

Met with Dr. Spiller
Introduced to additional notes on GaSP
Attended talk by Dr. Brylow

Wednesday, June 17

Compared previous and new maximum likelihood equations
Began developing a least squares model for our approximation
Met with Dr. Spiller to discuss new maximum likelihood equation

Thursday, June 18

Completed Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training
Began implementing new maximum likelihood equation
Integrated least squares model into maximum into approximation

Friday, June 19

Finalized implementation of least squares model
Tested approximation with multiple functions and inputs
Added reference prior to maximum likelihood equation
Met with Dr. Spiller
Watched RCR training videos

Week 4

Monday, June 22

Modified approximation function to allow multiple dimensions
Developed algorithm to import test data
Updated personal wiki page

Tuesday, June 23

Tested import algorithm
Met with Dr. Spiller
Searched for errors in code
Modified m(x) and v(x)

Wednesday, June 24

Began optimizing theta for multiple dimensions
Created algorithm for n-1 linear regressions

Thursday, June 25

Met with Dr. Spiller
Attended talk by Dr. Spiller
Modified Linear Regression
Plotted new approximation

Friday, June 26

Tested various functions with approximation
Cleaned/commented code
Began optimization for n dimensions