4/2/26
I recently got accepted into the Columbia University SR-EIP summer research program! I am so excited to be working with Dr. John Hunt in a molecular biophysics project over the summer. I look forward to engage in research full time and I hope to make everyone proud. I am working diligently on learning more about structural biology, and have been starting mini-projects using biopython online to learn skills that might prove to be useful for the projects.
3/16/26
I am so happy to say that I got accepted into the Unversity Scholars Program at the University of Florida for Fall 2026 -Spring 2027. This scholarship will allow me to focus more on my research this coming term, and I am so excited to make even more progress on my project. The project is coming along well, and I am excited to see where I will end up in the future. This semester has been extremely difficult on me mentally, but I am so grateful to be engaging in research. Somedays research has been the only reason I keep living. I am recovering, but times are still quite hard. I am just happy to be able to continue with my work; I don't know who I would be without my research.
1/26/26
It is about 3 weeks into the semester, I have a PDES exam in about a week. I'm getting quite excited for it. I've decided that the best days and times for me to run experiments is about 11 am on Saturdays and then 6am on Mondays. If need be, I can also end up running an experiment 6am Wednesday, but hopefully not. I also feel like 2 experiments a week is entirely reasonable. It also forces me to get work done on the weekends, which is good. I am preparing for a meeting with a professor in another department to discuss the project I am working on with Dr. Simsek. I am super excited to discuss the progress I've made. Overall, research has been so much fun, I've enjoyed it quite a lot. I especially enjoy the research setting we have. I missed that over winter break a lot.
1/2/26
Happy new years! I feel like I did a lot in 2025, I'm very happy with how everything worked out. Goodness, I feel like research has consumed my life, but I am not complaining. I love what I do. I think this year I want to focus a lot on research, which I plan on doing by maybe taking less classes each semester. I'm planning out my schedule for next semester and I'm like thinking of how many experiments one boy (me) can realisticly run in a week. I think 2 or 3 is reasonable. The one I ran last took about 4 hours or so. . It's more so the preperation time honestly. With classes, since mine are all in the afternoon, I would have to either run experiments at noon tusedays and thursdays or at like 6 am tusedays and thursdays. I think I'll go for the 6am time, I do very much enjoy working in the mornings. Plus, another draw to that time is that it'll force me to actually be productive on tusedays and thursdays, which I had been somewhat struggling to do last semeter without anything happening those days.
12/20/25
I have to learn PCA for lab, and I am writing a little documentation of how PCA works along with other similarity measurments (thats probably all I can say, honestly, but more coming in the future, trust). I've been writing in it LaTeX, so it actually looks pretty nice. This is my first time actually writing something in LaTeX.
12/7/25
One thing I've learned is that I have a very adverse reaction to going home to Orlando for some odd reason. Thankfully, I've found things that will keep me busy over winter break, which I was able to test out some over Thanksgiving break. I personally have been running a spectroscopy experiment, though I will likely develop further on that topic later. Perhaps over winter break I will also make another page dedicated to topics in biophysics I am interested in, I love reading old blogs still and wish more people had recent ones. This semester, other than working in the lab, I have been working through my classes, all of which are going well and I'm enjoying all of them. So far, I have finished linear algebra with an A as well as quantum mechanics 1 also with an A. Next week I have to study for the EM and Theoretical final and write one last essay for Survery of American Literature. I would choose to do this physics work any day over writing that essay even thoughh I'm almost done.
10/6/25
I joined a lab! Yay! I joined Emrah Şimşek's biophysics laband we study bacterial communties. In the lab we test how bacteria communties change over enviromental stress such as antibiotics, nutrience, and spacial dynamics. I think it might be a little bit of a learning curve for me, as I don't have much biology background, which I told Dr. Şimşek and he told me that gap will be filled throughout my time so long as I read papers. I do quite like reading papers, and I am very interested in the paper he has been assigning for me to read.
9/29/25
It's about a month into fall 2025 and things are going very well! I am loving the classes that I am taking and I'm doing well in all of them. I'm partularaly enjoying intro to quantum mechanics, I find the concepts very weird, but interesting. I am so glad I audited linear algebra over summer though, it has made the class a lot easier and I'd see why it everyone belives it should be a prerequsite. I'm inquiring professors about research in the biophysics field currently and reading up on papers in my free time so I can know what in biophysics intrigues me most.
7/8/25
Summer semester has been going great! I am so grateful that the professor for linear algebra is letting me audit his class, he is super funny and makes the class so interesting. I will be a linear legend after this semester. Abstract algebra can be super tricky and weird conceptually, I honestly shed a tear when it was revealed something wasn't a group because an element didn't map to itself. The professor of the class is also the undergraduate coordinatior and is suggesting that I compete in the SCUDEM math modeling competition. I think it sounds super interesting! I feel like I already learned a lot about mathmatical models and from biophysics and I really would like a chance to apply them to some new real world problems.
5/22/25
I finished my spring semester at UF! It's crazy that my first year of college is coming to a close, but I'm really excited for whats to come in the future. This summer, I'm mainly focusing on my classes, I'm registered for 18 credits, the more imporant ones being Abstract Algebra, General Chemistry 2, and Public Speaking. I was hoping to take Linear Algebra this summer as well, but I didn't get off the waitlist, however I am grateful that the professor teaching Linear Algebra this summer is letting me audit the class. My main motivation for learning Linear Algebra this summer is to make my experience in Introduction to Quantum Physics 1 come easier, as majority of those I've spoken to say it should be a prerequsite. Regardless, this is going to be a busy summer, but I am here for it and I am so excited for everything I can see happening on the horizon.
3/1/2025
Currently it's half-way through the spring semester at UF. I've been focusing a lot on my classwork, and I've been working hard on research. I've been loving all of my classes, especially biophysics and thermal physics. I've been loving the programming application assignments in biophysics especially, as I find it's been progressing my programming skills past typical computer science programming and into scientific programming. I love the topics we have been covering in biophysics. I especially love how we learn about the different models of biophyics, I just never knew there could be so much about it. The lecture on Luria-Delbrück's model was one of my favorite lectures so far, and I am excited to learn more.
1/1/2025
Happy New Year! I'm super excited for this year, and honestly one of my main goals this year is to develop this blog a little further. I hope to look back on this blog and see how far I've come. I don't anticipate a lot of viewship, but I've recently discovered some old physics blogs from way back when. I enjoy looking at peoples journey through acadamia, and I would like to have a time capsule of my life.
12/9/2024
I am so excited to have started my blog! I have taken courses in website development in high school, but I've never had a chance to apply them. I got the background of my blog from my physics 2 professors personal page, when I asked him where he got it from originally, he said he got it from his sons friend way back in the 2000's. It's funny how these sorts of passions and trends get passed down.