Matt Kafker is an active university student interested in physics, math, computer science, and literature. Dedicated to promoting the welfare of others, Matt Kafker has volunteered with organizations including the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter, Open Door Food Pantry, and Greater Boston Food Bank. Being an effective volunteer requires a specific set of skills. The following are five strengths that a volunteer should have:1. Awareness. A helpful volunteer identifies people’s needs and finds ways to meet them by using the knowledge they have gained from their life experience and training.2. Reliability. Volunteering requires a commitment to completing volunteer activities on a regular schedule.3. Compassion. Volunteers are empathic to the situations that impact those that they serve.4. Self-confidence. Being able to receive constructive criticism helps a volunteer learn how to provide better service while developing his or her skills. 5. Enthusiasm. Having a positive attitude and passion for the work being done is vital to making a successful contribution.
A university student with a focus on physics, computer science, and math, Matt Kafker is an avid reader who enjoys works of scientific inquiry. One of Matt Kafker’s favorite science writers is Richard Dawkins, who was interviewed by Scientific American in August 2017. One topic that Dawkins addressed was the “reproducibility crisis,” which has created serious concerns about the reliability of scientific research, particularly in the medical field. At the root of this is a tendency for the results of studies to be summed up in neat ways that are designed to gain wide dissemination in the media but don’t stand up to attempts at replication by other scientists.In addition, a “file drawer effect” exists, whereby those papers that do not disprove the null hypothesis, or accepted status quo, do not achieve publication, as they are considered too boring. As Dawkins views it, this can lead to the spread of falsehoods. This is because enough studies on a subject will eventually generate some outliers that “yield statistical significance,” even in cases where the null hypothesis is true. One way of resolving the file drawer effect proposed by Dawkins is for scientists to publish on the Internet their intention to undertake experiments beforehand. The results are then shared with the scientific community, regardless of whether the findings are positive or negative.
