Professional Statement

Greetings, my name is Jamika Michelle Baltrop.  I am currently a senior Computer Science major, GIS/Remote Sensing minor at Elizabeth City State University.  My goal is to continue maintaining a G.P.A. of 3.4 or higher and immersing myself in the Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) program to aid and further my education in the field of computer science. As a senior, I hope to engage in more research experiences and internships to help give me hands on experience and prepare me with the tools necessary to pursue a graduate degree in Computer Science.

So far, the URE program has provided me with the opportunity for research experience during my entire academic career.  During the fall and spring semester of 2005 and 2006, I was placed on the Coastal Upwelling team where my mentor was Dr. Malcolm LeCompte.  Our project was entitled “Coastal Upwelling” and the goal was to determine the correlation between sea surface temperatures and chlorophyll levels to provide evidence of coastal upwelling.  During the 2006 and 2007 school year I was again placed with Dr. Malcolm LeCompte as my mentor for the Antarctic Temperature Mapping team.  Our team project thesis was “West Antarctic Ice Sheet Firn Temperature Record Continuity and Seasonal Trends: Implications for Determining Emissivity Trends from SSM/I Brightness Temperatures”.  My team and I imported daily temperature values from the Automatic Weather Station archive, which were then converted to degrees Celsius and the averages from the brightness temperatures were used to find emissivity trends. This past academic year I had the opportunity to be placed on the IDL (Interactivie Data Language) Team, and Dr. Minjun Wang was my mentor. Our project was entitled, "Learning and Practicing Interactive Data Language (IDL) to Manipulate Scientific Data". IDL programming uses a command line interface, as well as mathematical functions to solve mathematical equations and animation tools to import desired images. Currently, I am working with, mentor Dr. Malcolm LeCompte in "Defining the Antarctic Ground Line".

Upon my completion at ECSU, I want to graduate in the top of my class.  After I have earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science I plan to attend graduate school to obtain a Master’s Degree in Computer and Information Science.  After receiving my Master's Degree I wish to be employed with a company in the computer science field, and to later to pave the way for me to obtain a PH.D.

In the future, I hope that my participation in internships can pave the way for available job opportunities.  My long-term goal is use the knowledge I’ve gained through internships, and my career in the field of computer science to be more useful to mankind.  With that said, I also hope to increase the usage of computers and technology abroad for people of all ages.  With these goals and skills I’ve obtain, I want to use my knowledge to help people around the world.