Today was the final day of judging, which was a relief. It was different today, however, because it was project judging instead of panel judging which meant that we were now talking about the subject we were experts in. When we got to the second floor, all of our posters were set up on tables. It was a beautiful sight. After breakfast, Dr. Valentine, the head judge, gave us a short speech before judging began. Everyone had four scheduled judging interviews, but judges could also pop in at random times to our posters if they were interested or had some question they wanted to ask. Some people speculate that your number of pop-in interviews is correlated with your chance of getting top 10, but nobody is completely sure if that’s true.
Since my project was social science with a strong mathematical/statistical element, I was assigned the social science judge as well as two mathematics judges and a computational biology judge. I also had a bunch of pop-in interviews from various people in other fields. My voice began to grow a bit hoarse from explaining my project to so many people. I enjoyed asking the questions that the judges asked me and thinking deeper about my project.
After having a quick conversation with the social science judge, Dr. Claudine Gartenberg, about graduate school and the intersection of computer science and causal inference, I went to lunch to take a break from talking about my project. The hamburgers didn’t look that big, but for some reason it filled me up really fast and I couldn’t even finish my whole burger. I discussed judging with the other finalists during lunch to see how their interviews went. It seemed like most of us felt more comfortable with questions about our project than the assorted science questions we were asked during the panel interviews.
Public Day was after lunch. It was packed with people interested in seeing what research we had done. FOX News even came in to ask Ray some questions about his work. Pop-in interviews also continued during this period. I got more than I expected, and I did not have enough water next to my table, so my throat began to get very sore. I also got a bit tired of standing on my feet. In between interviews, I talked to some people who came to check out our projects, including a few statisticians and an STS alumnus. I enjoyed telling people about my research, breaking down my research in a way that anyone could understand, and answering questions.
When Public Day was done, I went back to my room to take an hour break and have a bit of downtime until 5 pm when we would learn about Hill Day, where would meet our members of Congress. I was pleased during the Hill Day meeting when I learned that was going to meet one of my senators, Adam Schiff! After the meeting, we headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, where I ate fajitas and learned more about living in Ohio from Laasya.
After dinner, we went back on the bus and went on a tour of the major Washington, DC monuments, like the Lincoln , Martin Luther King Jr. , and World War II Memorial. They were stunning, especially at night when the lights shone on the old stone. I particularly liked the quotes at the Lincoln and MLK memorials because of their beautiful prose.
Finally, we arrived back to the hotel, and I went back to my room to decompress after the long day and write this blog post.
