Long term, I am excited about utilizing complexity modeling and simulation to explore environmental data, particularly as it relates to socioeconomic relationships to biodiversity, disease spread, and ecosystem services. I plan to attend a graduate program this fall, and hope to one day become a professor. My experience with undergraduate research, particularly this project, has enabled me to build the quantitative skills necessary to succeed in a graduate research program. This semester, I am learning to code in python, to build an agent-based model from the ground up in NetLogo, and continuing to develop skills using R to evaluate data. Each week, I spend a portion of my time building these skills through reading, practicing my coding, and taking short courses. The second largest portion of time is spent reviewing the literature on agent-based modeling, the natural history of livestock and ticks, and tick-borne disease. Finally, I am starting to formalize and code my model. As the semester continues, a larger and larger portion of my time will be spent focusing on building and testing the model. At the end of the semester, I hope to have a finalized, publishable model that can help us better understand critical human health questions.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
URSP Student Alexis Garretson Learns How to Design and Write an Agent-based Model in NetLogo
Long term, I am excited about utilizing complexity modeling and simulation to explore environmental data, particularly as it relates to socioeconomic relationships to biodiversity, disease spread, and ecosystem services. I plan to attend a graduate program this fall, and hope to one day become a professor. My experience with undergraduate research, particularly this project, has enabled me to build the quantitative skills necessary to succeed in a graduate research program. This semester, I am learning to code in python, to build an agent-based model from the ground up in NetLogo, and continuing to develop skills using R to evaluate data. Each week, I spend a portion of my time building these skills through reading, practicing my coding, and taking short courses. The second largest portion of time is spent reviewing the literature on agent-based modeling, the natural history of livestock and ticks, and tick-borne disease. Finally, I am starting to formalize and code my model. As the semester continues, a larger and larger portion of my time will be spent focusing on building and testing the model. At the end of the semester, I hope to have a finalized, publishable model that can help us better understand critical human health questions.