While all Laidlaw Scholars will be presenting their research at the Columbia Undergraduate Research Symposium in the fall, what are the more immediate expectations that you have for your research? Are you writing a paper? Will your research be part of a larger scientific study? Do you hope to produce an annotated bibliography that you reflect on down the line? Is your research now the first phase of a project you’ll continue to work on throughout the year, and/or next summer? Now that we are nearing the one month mark of the program, please write about your expectations for your research.

• For my project on the indigenous Hawaiian language and math modeling, I am writing a research paper that I plan on completing by the end of this summer's program. In my research paper, I write in-depth about the history and implications of the Hawaiian native language and also devote a portion of my paper to discussing the math modeling I conducted on the language. I am interested in honing my skills in academic and formal writing, which is why I chose a standard research paper to be my final output for this summer. Currently, since my research paper is almost complete, I plan to pursue a different project next summer, potentially exploring a different language or a different subject altogether. Later on this summer, I would like to explore the possibility of creating an annotated bibliography to accompany my research paper. Right now, I have a works cited page for my research paper, but I would be interested in creating an annotated bibliography to go along with my research paper.

Why does your research matter? Explain the significance of the question you are investigating, and why you are interested in it.

• Ultimately, my research seeks to answer the question: what happens when a language dies? My hometown name, Sammamish, is a town in Washington state and is a word in an endangered Coastal Salish language, Lushootseed. Although I was born and raised in Sammamish, it wasn't until I entered high school that I learned about the language Lushootseed and learned that it was in critical danger of dying. This idea—of a language dying—intrigued me and sparked my interest in researching endangered languages. My project is one that blends math with linguistics to explore how we can draw upon various societal factors, including educational integration, media presence, and community use, to predict the decline of certain endangered languages. By predicting this decline, we can appropriately address how to revitalize endangered languages while they are still alive. My research, though STEM-based, poses a deeply humanitarian question in seeking to understand the significance of languages to the cultures they represent.