Electrical Measurement of Insect Feeding
Piercing-sucking insects (mosquitoes, ticks, aphids, sharpshooters) are vectors for animal and plant diseases that cause immense human suffering and that pose grave agricultural threats. For instance, the Asian Citrus Psyllid spread a citrus greening disease that has caused billions of dollars of damages to Florida's citrus crops. Preventing the spread of this diseases requires careful measurements of how insects feed, and one technique to measure this is electropenetography (EPG), where a small voltage is applied to an insect, and the current that passes through the insect during feeding is monitored to observe behavior.
Amplifiers for EPG have typically been bulky, noise-prone, and unsuitable for field use, but recent clinic projects and efforts by my research group have demonstrated modern, small, low-cost, mostly-digital amplifiers that can be used for field work. Developing these amplifiers further requires work on circuit design, firmware and microcontroller development, and software development.
ESSAY PROMPT
1. Why are you motivated to join this project? What do you hope to get out of it? (1 short paragraph)
2. How much time can you commit to research this semester? (1 short paragraph)
3. Describe your prior experiences with benchtop electronics (oscilloscope, power supplies, function generators), microcontrollers (ideally beyond basic Arduino use) or Python application development. (3-5 sentences per category of prior experience, split into separate paragraphs for each category.)
4. Describe a time that you got stuck on a project and then got unstuck. Be specific about what you did to get yourself unstuck. (1-2 short paragraphs)
Mind the length suggestions above. It's easier for me to find your main points in a shorter essay.
NOTE: Successful applicants to this project will be recruited to the research group during the fall or spring semester and compensated with academic credit. Full time, paid summer hires will be recruited from within the research group in the spring.
Working in the ACE lab trains students to be circuit experts, social science enthusiasts, engaging communicators and persistent, independent researchers. Working in this lab is the best way at Mudd to learn how to build a printed circuit board, and a great way to engage with challenging analog problems and build a circuit that will be consumed by active, engaged end-users.