Hans Engler, Georgetown University

Abstract

In this talk, I will report on projects related to Mathematics of Planet Earth that were done by undergraduate students at Georgetown University under my direction during the last four years. These projects typically last two to six months and involve analytical and computational work together with visualization, and sometimes statistical analysis. Topics include an analysis of ridership patterns in an urban bikeshare system, a study of the well-known Lorenz'96 model for a one-dimensional planet, an exploration of a model for vegetation patterns in drylands, and work on extrapolation and interpolation of climate extreme indices that were obtained from ensembles of general circulation models. I shall report on characteristics of such short projects, choices of topics, and typical student trajectories leading up to the project and beyond.