Swapan Bhuiyan
Class of 2004 - Present
Presently: St.John's University
Manhattan Center of Science & Math
Topic: 2006 Visual Artificial Tongue: Quantitative Water Analysis by an Off-the-Shelf Dye Array
Presentation (ppt)
Research abstract (pdf)
Topic: The Study of Environmental Quality: Restoring the Bronx River
About:
One of my life changing experiences was joining Harlem Children Society (HCS). I joined HCS in the summer of 2003. HCS is a non-profit organization that pairs up students with a scientific expert and in turn they do research together in the summer. Through HCS I feel like I am going through a journey that would lead me to a better future.
I met Dr. Sat Bhattachrya, CEO and chairman of HCS, one day after school. I was interviewed by Dr. Sat in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), where he is a research scientist. I was assured by Dr. Sat that I am a strong candidate, and a few days later he called to conform my acceptance in HCS. A week after my sophomore year was over, in the summer, the HCS had its orientation. Thirteen students, including me, form all over the New York City and New Jersey, were given information about our mentors. My mentors name was Dr. Madhu Mazumdhar, in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics department of MSKCC.
I found information on 315 patients of Plasma Rational. Their age, sex, Smoking Status, and Bata plasma status were taking to study how large of a sample is enough from a 10% sample, 30% sample, 60% sample, and a 90% sample. I created graphs for each of the data and compared it with the graph of the total amount. We also took the mean, median, range, and variance for each of the sample and compared it with the total amount. Our conclusion was that the similarity of the results and the sample relies on the data set. Such as, in the sex data, only 30% of the sample was needed as to smoke status, 90% of the data was required.
I met Dr. Madhu two weeks after my starting date due to her being in Canada in a conference. However I was introduced to Mr. Andrew Wilton, my co mentor, and Dr. Jaya Satagopan, who works in that department. They introduced me to the type of project I would be doing and gave me materials to read on biostatistics. When Dr. Madhu came, we started right away on our project. My project was "Sampling from a Population: How large is large enough." We took data of 315 patients of Plasma Retinol. The data included various criteria; we took the data of their Age Range, Sex, Smoking Status, and Plasma beta-carotene. Then we separated 10%, 30%, 60%, and 90% of each set of data to compare with the whole population. We figured out the mean, median, minimum, maximum, range, and variance of each set of percentage. We created pie charts of smoking status and sex data because they are discrete data, these data cannot be measured in scale. We created histograms for age range and Plasma beta-carotene because they are continuous data, these can be measured in scale. Our results were that 60% sampling were needed for continuous data and 90% sampling was needed for discrete data to represent the whole population well. I learned quit a lot from this experience. Before joining HCS I never even heard of biostatistics I have learned to use simple computing tools to do complex mathematical assignments.
The next year, 2004, I was paired up with Ms. Kimberlin Vasquez, of Rocking The Boat (RTB), a non-profit organization that monitors the Bronx River. This time, the HCS had fifty students, and I am proud to be one of them. From RTB, I was to collect information on how polluted the Bronx River is. To learn how much pollution is in the Bronx River, I collected the pH level, Dissolve Oxygen level, Turbidity, Nitrate, Salinity, air temperature, water temperature, and Saturation of Oxygen level in water. We were to collect this information from three sites of the river, the Starlight Park point, the Cement Factory point, and the Soundview Park point. These sites were chosen because they are all near polluted area, Starlight park had chemical ground contamination, Cement Factory point is feared to be polluted by an abandoned cement factory, and the Soundview park is built on landfill. We would row out in the Bronx River to collect these data. Then we are to compare the average data of this year to the data of last year to see he changes. Our conclusion was that the Bronx River was getting dirtier from last year. I learned many things from this experience including how important it is to have our river system cleaned, and I am proud to consider my self as an environmental activist. I also learned various maritime skills including rowing, having great communication skills as it is necessary in a rowing boat, getting more physical endurance to coup with longer trips, and I had a wonderful summer. I continue the research after school because it is such a magnificent activity.
I have attended many conferences with these projects. I have attended and presented my projects in many conferences including the American Chemical Society's convention in New York City in 2003 with my biostatistics project and in Philadelphia in 2004 with my environmental science project. I have received numerous awards as part of HCS - including by Sigma Xi society, New York Roentgen Society, the Presidential award of Harlem Children Society. I was introduced to many experts of different field of science and was enabled to interact with them. Harlem Children Society changed my life. I am now considering science to be my major in college.