Overall Research Project Description We will be studying the bacterial gradostat. A gradostat is an interconnected system of devices where bacteria is continuously grown. This tool is commonly used in biology labs to grow, harvest, and maintain a desired cell culture of bacteria. Gradostat systems are also commonly used within biology as a “crude” model for microbial ecological systems where there may be competition between multiple bacteria populations. One of the benefits of the gradostat is that one can model almost exactly what happens in the physical device using a system of mathematical equations. We will study these mathematical equations in detail and work on simulating them through MatLab or Python. We will also apply the statistical method known as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to make predictions about the gradostat system. In particular, we will be interested in estimating and predicting the growth rate of the bacteria.