User talk:Amc89

About Me

I am currently freshman at Duke University in the Pratt School of Engineering, planning to study biomedical engineering. I'm from Murrysville, Pennsylvania, a suburb just outside of Pittsburgh, where I attended school at Franklin Regional School District. Although I just arrived on campus a few weeks ago, I have already joined the Society of Women Engineers, Engineers without Borders, BME Society, and PALS. I also hope to volunteer in the hospital at Duke Medical Center and be involved on campus!

Interests

Dance has always been an important part of my life. I have been tapping and pirouetting since I was four and even danced my way through New York. In 2009, I performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as part of my high school band’s dance team. If I am not dancing, I love to be in the water. My swimming career began at seven when I joined my first team and continued throughout high school. In the summer, you can find me at my neighborhood pool lifeguarding. I am that kid who would never get out of the water, whether it was a freezing pool or the salty Atlantic Ocean. The beach is probably my favorite place on earth.

Name Pronunciation

Although a lot of people use a nickname for Allison, I don’t. My name sounds like: AL-iss-in CHAFF-o

My first name is pronounced like the children’s story, “Alice in Wonderland,” without the Wonderland of course! Some of my friends call me Chaff, so you can think of that as rhyming with “laugh”, and then add an “o” for my last name. Pretty easy stuff.

Grand Challenges

Engineer better medicines

Drug-Resistant Germs Lure Biotechs to Create New Antibiotics, Rob Waters, Bloomberg Businessweek, created 17 May 2011, accessed 10 September 2011

Matlab Demonstration

I found the "Earth's Topography" to be particularly interesting because it clearly demonstrates how MATLAB can be used for very practical purposes. While we are all familiar with the shape of the continents on the dusty globe that sat in the corner of our high school classroom, this is a representation of the Earth's topography using actual data and depicting those same recognizable shapes. The contour map was especially striking because it looked as if someone had drawn the outlines of the continents on a sheet of paper. Of course, such a map was instantly recognizable as that of the world. It was reassuring to know that the maps I have been looking at all these years are accurate! The 2-D and 3-D plots were also very interesting, as they also displayed the variations in elevation both above and below sea level. I found it intriguing that MATLAB can take simple data such as points of elevation and convert them into a precise topography map. Of particular interest was the variations in elevation underneath the world's oceans. A visual such as this can have a greater impact on students than a simple set of data points alone.