I completed a senior thesis for my major, Earth and Planetary Sciences, quantifying how sunlight and temperature affect carbon exchange, or Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE), in the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. The Harvard Forest is a mid-latitude temperate forest in central Massachusetts and is home to the longest-running dataset on eddy-flux tower measurements of carbon in the world, making it a great site to study the short-term and long-term effects of the environment on ecological processes of photosynthesis and respiration.

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I performed the statistical modeling needed for the project, analyzed large datasets of NEE measurements, worked with my advisors Dr. Bill Munger and Dr. Steven Wofsy, and published a 61-page thesis. The finished thesis was nominated for Honors at graduation and presented twice, once at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences thesis presentations in May 2017 and the second time for the American Geophysical Union (AGU)'s 2017 Virtual Poster Showcase.