User:Kmf19

About Me

My name is Katie Ferguson and I am from Media, Pennsylvania, which is about 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia. I am currently a freshman at Duke University in the Pratt School of Engineering (why else would I be posting on here?). I'm planning on majoring in Civil Engineering, with the Environmental track because I'm very interested in the environment and environmental issues and I was part of an environmental science academic team in my high school called Envirothon. My high school team won the Canon Envirothon competition two years ago when it was held here in North Carolina, so I know a lot about NC trees (because I studied forestry). But that was high school, so I should move on...

So what am I doing here at Duke? So far I've joined the Quidditch team (I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan) and I'm playing for Slytherin. I'm also hoping to get involved in the Engineers Without Borders project in Uganda.

Name Pronunciation

"Katie Ferguson" should sound like "KAY-tee FUR-ga-sun". It's not generally mispronounced, though I have heard "fur-GA-sun" before.

Demos that I liked

My favorite MATLAB demo was the "Bending Truss" one. I literally laughed out loud when the bridge started bouncing. After I got over just being amused, it was cool to see how it bent at different points for different "Mode" numbers. I also liked the "Game of Life" demo, because it was kind of mesmerizing to just watch.

Grand Challenges

This article looks cool! It's about ways to sequester carbon. To bring CO\(_2\) levels to safe (or at least not too damaging) levels, we will need to drastically reduce or eliminate outputs in the near future. Carbon Sequestration R&D Overview, US Department of Energy, updated 5 January 2009, accessed 20 September, 2010