The Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies

Hi everybody. My name is Thomas Do and I am a junior majoring in Environmental Science at the University of San Francisco. Over the summer, I worked with Dr. Xinyu Li to quantify the change in carbon dioxide on the U.S. west coast from depth levels between 0-2000 meters. I spent most of my time in a shared office with two other interns at Wallace Hall. My mentor worked just two doors down, which made it easy to reach her whenever I had a question or whenever a weekly meeting was scheduled to go over my progress. On Tuesdays, I got to visit and work at the PMEL campus, where I also sat in on meetings with the Carbon Group.

I spent the first few weeks of this REU getting used to the software I would be using, MATLAB, where I learned how to read and process data, as well as create various models. I also got familiar with Copernicus, a marine database website where I downloaded my data from as .nc files. Since the parameters I wanted to read were found on two different models, I had to learn how to match their grids so I could combine them to be read together. I spent a good portion of my time learning how to do that before I moved on to creating a large data table that contained all the information for each parameter relative to years 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018. The next step was to use this data to calculate anthropogenic carbon. I did this by using an algorithm designed by my mentor, RECA, that also calculated the total alkalinity, dissolved carbon dioxide, and partial pressure of carbon dioxide values. Towards the end of the REU, I spent my time processing and analyzing our results with my mentor.

Before coming to Seattle, I had no coding experience. That changed dramatically over the course of nine weeks. I can confidently say that I can now use MATLAB to a certain extent, and this will definitely help me understand how to code on other platforms like Python. Secondly, I gained valuable data analysis skills after processing and analyzing dozens of plots multiple times. The numerous meetings I had with my mentor taught me important skills in research and professionalism that I will need in graduate school. On top of all this, my technical skills improved significantly from the hours I spent on my computer each day. I would also like to mention that the several seminars and symposium that we attended helped me improve my networking skills, which is something that will come in handy for other opportunities I plan to take on.

I recommend this program for anyone who wants to go to graduate school. I can guarantee that you will gain lots of useful knowledge and experiences from being in an environment full of people with different views on the topic.

Lastly, I want to thank all the other interns I spent my summer with. From going out to get boba on the Ave. to playing Catan in our dorm, you guys made my experience in Seattle much more enjoyable outside Wallace Hall.

Project Introduction

Research Poster