Water Level Forecasting Along The Texas Coast: Interdisciplinary Research With Undergraduates

While pure mathematics makes it sometimes difficult to involve undergraduates who have not yet completed the higher level math courses in research projects, research in applied mathematics is generally more accessible to these students. We present an example of an integrated research environment including faculty, research professionals and students which has facilitated the productive involvement of undergraduate students in applied mathematics research. The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Division of Nearshore Research manages a network of about 50 coastal observation stations including the Texas Coastal Observation Network. As part of the network operation a number of environmental time series are collected and archived leading to data analysis, quality control and modeling opportunities for applied mathematicians. This paper discusses an example of the results of the involvement of a student in an applied mathematics research project. The student is a freshman in mathematics who caught attention by doing well in Advanced Calculus. The student’s initial assignment is to investigate whether a change in the performance function used during the training of a neural network program will lead to significant changes in the accuracy of the water level forecasts produced by the model.