{"id":45252,"date":"2023-01-27T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T17:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/?p=45252"},"modified":"2023-01-27T12:26:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T17:26:27","slug":"umss23-student-profile-ainslie-allen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/2023\/01\/27\/umss23-student-profile-ainslie-allen\/","title":{"rendered":"UMSS23 Student Profile: Ainslie Allen"},"content":{"rendered":"

While looking for a job on campus during her freshman year, Ainslie Allen happened to listen to a presentation given by Dr. Caitlin Howell and the rest, as they say, is history. Allen has been working in Dr. Howell\u2019s lab ever since and has \u201cenjoyed every minute of it.\u201d Allen says \u201cworking with Dr. Howell has been absolutely amazing. She has taught me so much over the last two years that I never would have learned in class.\u201d Allen credits working with her faculty mentor with her knowledge of basic experiment design, technical writing and presentation. \u201cShe has provided me with countless opportunities that not only typical students don\u2019t get, but that typical undergraduate researchers also don\u2019t get, and that\u2019s all thanks to her mentorship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Allen has two major pieces of advice for other students considering involvement in research. \u201cThe only way you\u2019re going to enjoy doing research is if you like your research advisor and if you like your project.\u201d Allen says having a good relationship with your research advisor encourages you to work hard and make your advisor proud. She also says that liking and having interest in your research project means you won\u2019t mind putting in the work to see the project through. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got those two things, it\u2019s going to feel like everything else just falls into place, and you\u2019re going to feel much more confident about your own plans after graduating,\u201d says Allen.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Allen\u2019s current project within Dr. Howell\u2019s lab, their research is particularly timely, given recent happenings across the globe during the past three years. Their research is focused on \u201climiting disease transmission via high traffic surfaces.\u201d They are studying the cleanliness of surfaces using a Maine-made nanopatterned material and pairing that with a smartphone and machine learning system. The nanopatterned material creates a rainbow on the surface, which changes depending on whether a contaminant is present. Using a machine learning algorithm, they can measure those changes and integrate them into a smartphone application, which can be used by the general public. The app will give users \u201cthe power to determine whether a surface coated in the nanopatterned material is clean or dirty in a quick, cheap, and easily accessible manner. In this way, we will help ensure high traffic surfaces stay clean and disease-free, keeping our community safe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While looking for a job on campus during her freshman year, Ainslie Allen happened to listen to a presentation given by Dr. Caitlin Howell and the rest, as they say, is history. Allen has been working in Dr. Howell\u2019s lab ever since and has \u201cenjoyed every minute of it.\u201d Allen says \u201cworking with Dr. Howell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":45253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"148","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-umss-student-profiles-2023"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":148,"label":"UMSS Student Profiles 2023"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/458\/2023\/01\/AVS-Award-Pic-Ainslie-Allen-1024x932.jpeg",1024,932,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Deanna","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/author\/djordan\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":148,"name":"UMSS Student Profiles 2023","slug":"umss-student-profiles-2023","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":148,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":52,"count":6,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":148,"category_count":6,"category_description":"","cat_name":"UMSS Student Profiles 2023","category_nicename":"umss-student-profiles-2023","category_parent":52}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45255,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45252\/revisions\/45255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/umss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}