In summer of 2017, I had the fortune of being a part of the Computational Social Science (CSS) REU held at the Center for Research Computing at the University of Notre Dame. I worked with Dr. David Hachen on the NetHealth Project, an NIH funded effort to look at the connection between one's activity and sleep levels and social network groups using FitBit data.
My specific job was to analyze network survey data. Students who are part of the study have to answer surveys wherein they name 20 of their personal social contacts. After filtering out parental contacts, I looked at the demographic makeup of the students' social networks through the first three waves of these surveys. Using R, I calculated the average student network demographic makeup by both ego and alter religion and race, and tested the statistical significance of these results. I presented this research in the form of a poster at a symposium at the end of the summer.