Craig Jenquin
UCSD class of 2021
Applied Math / General Linguistics
This website is for those interested in learning a bit about my expertise, work ethic, and personal undertakings. I am currently at a professional crossroads. All fields dealing with data are massively aided by the proper application of statistics, a field in which I am well-versed. The benefits of revealing patterns in customer requests, product output, and mechanical efficiency, can be shown in financial dividends as well as product quality.
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I am interested in applying my plethora of analytical skills to viable, long-term solutions to the problems that plague our planet. Infrastructure of the highest quality will be sorely needed if humanity is to persist and flourish. Renewable energy, efficient agriculture, universal education, organized mass transit, ecological restoration, and humane social support: these are the goals I have studied my whole life to play some role in achieving. My hope is that the reader has an opportunity for me to show my stuff, to contribute meaningfully to one of these critical human rights.
Qualifications
A little more about what I can do and how I operate
Front of the House
Many of my prior employments have given me experience guiding difficult coworkers and customers to a solution with patient respect. In addition to my talkative nature, catering and teaching have taught me that clearly stating to collaborators the issues and the steps being taken to solve them ensures a harmonious understanding of the task at hand.
Hypothesis Testing
Much of modern statistics is concerned with the binary acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis based on numerical data. Wilcoxon tests and T-tests, which require very little prior knowledge of the data's behavior to be informative, are powerful statistical tools when applied to the proper hypotheses. More large-scale statistical models involve Bayesian statistics, which update a prior model with a current input, becoming more accurate with more data. Not all problems have statistical solutions, but all problems can be better understood with statistical methods.
Programming and Data Visualization
Working with computers is not only the future, it's the present. As such, I have a keen interest in expanding my coding capabilities. Many intricate tasks and tests can be automated with a few lines of code. I am well-studied in statistical analysis and model fitting, and reasonably proficient at graphing in R. I have taken a two classes in introductory Java, and my current job requires me to code with Jupyter Notebooks, which has exposed me to Python as well. I am currently learning how to create presentations in Tableau.
Group Work and Leadership
The skill and preparation of a manager can make or break a team. I participate avidly in group contexts and readily assume leadership, striving to give the sort of directions I would want from a manager. That said, I prefer to take directions than give them, provided they are detailed in aim and specify a method of achievement. While I will always work with respect to accomplish the tasks set for me by a superior, I do not hesitate to assert when I feel mistakes are being made.
Organization
Few ventures succeed through the work of one individual, so accessing the knowledge and expertise of one's coworkers is critical to the proper application of a team's resources. All of my work experience thus far has enforced my opinion that diligent and consistent organization provides the clarity that others need to accurately asses your progress. Being stuck with a problem isn't shameful, but being unable to effectively communicate that problem and explain the solutions you have tried is. Currently, I run QC assessments at a neurological study at UCSD. This requires that I not only prepare legible, informative reports for my immediate superior, but that my progress be meticulously recorded for future reference and recovery.
About Me
As an Applied Math major at the University of California San Diego, I focus my academic efforts on the comprehension of fundamental mathematical theories. in my sophomore year, I discovered a second educational love in the form of Linguistics. Since then, my primary goal has been the marriage of statistical and experimental linguistics with advanced math. The world of data science and machine learning has opened the computational doors to a whole new understanding of human language through the language of mathematics.
Outside the classroom, I am an audiophile and moderately skilled cellist. Having grown up just south of Los Angeles, I am used to a busy lifestyle and prefer to have plenty to occupy me. Southern California has instilled a love of surfing and swimming in me that is rivaled only by my passion for problem solving and rationality.
My current fields of study include English syntax, general morphology of agglutinating languages, and applied linear algebra.
(Un)Published Work
Projects and Personal Inquiries
Linguistics and Neuroscience
Language is one of the most powerful tools known to humankind; one whose complexity and depth may be inherited by our posterity for millennia. Language allows us to access the thoughts of our neighbors, to express an infinitely complex system as a single word, nothing else can do that.
The ability to generalize, to take a continuous perception and segment it into discrete, named chunks, has had an important impact on human physiology and cognition. The papers in this section look into the development, acquisition, and implicit structures of language, all of which lend an important perspective to the current state of linguistics.
A Study of Auditory Sentiment Analysis
Using the Praat spectral imaging software, my colleague Hana Vaid and I developed an original experiment to detect anger in speech. The goal was to isolate patterns in the pitch, volume, and production time of a variety of test sentences. Since this project was attached to a class, the linked presentation is humorous, but informative. Data is available upon request.
A Close Translation of an Animated Favorite
Translation is a hotly contested subject in the linguistic arena. Words, without the context granted by their original language, can lose meaning through translation. This inspired my classmates (Guangzheng Zhang, Cameron Smith) and I to closely translate fragments of an anime we knew and loved in order to better capture the essence of the art form.
The Difference
This paper examines the difficult problems surrounding the abortion debate currently rousing America and countries across the world. The writing delves into complexities surrounding rational agency and moral obligations to the lives of others. It draws mostly from the works of Judith Thomson, Richard Arneson, and Mary Anne Warren, and attempts to show a clear distinction between abortion and infanticide.
The Catalysts of Cultural and Technological Development
Have you ever wondered why, in the 1500s when invaders from Europe came to the Americas across the Pacific, they were armed with superior weaponry and had made critical scientific advances that gave them the edge? In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to do just that. This paper delves into a more specific expediter of technological advancement: farming, and why it might just be the most revolutionary technology known to humankind.
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