Tuesday: I had my first orientation meeting. It went quite well. I really liked how thorough Dr. Fazar and Dr. Clay were about the responsibilities of being in this program. I also did my research presentation, about my mentor’s project and what I’ll be doing this summer. I did so well! I was shocked at the fact that I didn’t stutter or panic about it! I felt so proud of myself.

Wednesday: First day working with my mentor, Matt. It went pretty well. I realized that the thing I will be struggling for sure is analyzing and visualizing data. It’s hard. I asked Matt if it’s going to be hard, and he said yes. That gave me a bit of relief in a way because at least I know that I’m not slow at understanding; it’s hard in general.

For the rest of the day, we created “Phantoms”, which are rubber-like materials Matt has developed. With the help of phantoms, we can simulate skin thickness by placing one in between our skin and the device. We want to make sure the light gets data without error before testing it on real patients. Phantoms of various sizes are created and will be used to see if the light transmitting to the skin and into the radial artery gives us accurate data when testing it on ourselves. We measure our heart rate (HR) and oxygen saturation (SpO₂).

Phantoms are created with a combination of titanium oxide, PDMS, and curing solution 😊

Thursday: Today Matt helped me collect my own data with 8 different phantom sizes and concentration. I simultaneously collected PPG signals from each wavelength (green, red and infra-red) for HR and PPG signals from red and infra-red wavelengths for SpO_2. My next steps for this upcoming weekend are to continue reading about the Fourier transform, and hopefully begin filtering data to the particular range Matt told me (0.5 to 5 Hz).

Friday: It stormed this morning, and Matt recommended me to stay home for today. But I continued with my readings of Fourier transform.