User:Bb145

My Name

So my name is completely German. Bianca Bracht . . . pronounced BEE-ANH-KEH (stress in the beginning) BRA-*German throaty sound (like heavy breathing)*-T (one syllable). Good luck with that.

About Me

I am a freshman at Duke University. I was born in Munich, Germany, and have family both in Germany and Brazil. I moved to the United States when I was really young, and have (for the most part) assimilated to the American culture. I'm hoping to become an American citizen very soon...(!). During middle school I lived in Shanghai for two years, during which I gained so much experience and fell in love with learning about cultures of the world, so I'm hoping to fill my college career with plenty of "global" activities to project that passion. We moved back to the United States so that I could go to high school near Chicago. During the summer of 2011, we moved once more--to Charlotte; I'm not too far from my family, which to me, is the most important aspect of my life.

Study

I plan to major in biomedical engineering, with a minor in Chinese. What I plan to do with that . . . is still a mystery.

Activities/Hobbies

• travelling (I've been to around 30 different countries)
• running
• playing tennis
• knitting
• eating

Demonstration

My favorite demonstration was the one about Predicting the U.S. Population (mainly because I could understand it). However, what interested me was the point that it brought up. There are countless ways to fit polynomial functions to a set of data, using different powers of x. A problem arises in choosing which degree polynomial to best represent data, and then use to generate predictions. The graph in this demonstration showed the use of various different functions to represent the U.S. population. Each function seemed to fit the data reasonably well; that is, no distinction could be made as to which function fit the data better (by eye). However, each resulted in a different prediction for the U.S. population in the future. So which should be used? Statisticians can choose any one of them, and thereby they have the power to control the statistics that we hear, and therefore have influence on our perceptions of reality.

Grand Challenges for Engineering Articles

I'm really interested in the Grand Challenge relating to engineering better medicines. Our world's technological advance is so rapid, and I believe that modern medicine needs to implement that change in order to become effective for the human population.

• Weill Cornell experts publish review of genetic medicine, News Medical, April 3, 2006, 09/23/2011 (Engineering Better Medicines).