Heather Drake is part of the Summer Science Scholars Program (S3RP). Students are chosen for this special summer program based on their academic record and letters of recommendation from faculty. She is working with mathematician Dr. Mark Branson developing a map of Baltimore which uses a non-euclidean metric based on the travel time between two points using public transportation. The goal is to measure the curvature of space in this metric at individual points and correlate this with crime rates in the city of Baltimore – their hypothesis is that areas with low or negative curvature will correlate with high crime rates.
Heather finds this research project very interesting. She enjoys learning and working with the software program, Mathematica. This has been a great opportunity for her to explore a career in research!