Profile

• Time Zone

  Central

  
  
• Organization

  Northwestern University

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I'm interested in diversification of plants in the important biodiversity area known as the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania. Impatiens have diversified in this area more than any other group of plants, so I study the genomes of Impatiens from this area to understand relationships between their populations and between Impatiens species.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is best about being a scientist?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  I like that I get to learn new skills and try out new technologies in the lab. But best of all is visiting amazing places and exploring something that I find interesting: plants!

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  My favorite plant is the Baobob tree because of its giant trunk that looks so cool on the landscape. Plus, their fruit are delicious and they make the best juice!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  (not set)

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  (not set)

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

vsnhsfrazerwosspring2024 project 3 Nora Gavin-Smyth Mar 26 at 06:54am

Hi Team! I tried to look at the link but it didn't work for me. If you can upload it into "Files" that should be better. 

There's not much you can do about missing data collection on the weekend days! Without seeing your…

more

Hi Team! I tried to look at the link but it didn't work for me. If you can upload it into "Files" that should be better. 

There's not much you can do about missing data collection on the weekend days! Without seeing your data sheet, I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think this should be a problem. 

Finally, that's too bad bout Seed D which didn't germinate. It might throw off the results, but that's okay. When you write up a report for this experiment, this is something that you can talk about in the discussion, and scientists do this all the time to explain results that are surprising! Is your final measurement going to be germination (Yes/No)? 

The reason Seed D didn't germinate might just be something random, or this might be something to do with the saturation treatment. If there were a few more replicates of each treatment, you could figure this out. When you have replicates, you can more confidently say that the effect that you're seeing is a result of your treatment, and not a result of randomness. For example, if you have 20 seeds that are getting the "saturation" treatment, and 1 out of 20 seeds doesn't germinate, I think we could probably just say that that 1 seed didn't germinate for a random reason. If 10 out of 20 didn't germinate, then this is very strong evidence that it's not something random happening. Even using just 4 replicates can give you more power to see if your results are due to randomness or the effect of your treatment! Designing an experiment with replicates in your classroom is a big challenge because of limited space and resources of course, so I don't expect you to change your experiment and do this now, but I do want you all to understand the power of using replicates in an experiment :)

mhsmirandaaftwspring2024 project 3 Nora Gavin-Smyth Mar 26 at 06:29am

Okay, I see. Have you all taken your final measurements yet?

mhsmirandaaftwspring2024 project 13 Nora Gavin-Smyth Mar 26 at 06:27am

Great! Are there any updates about your investigation?