Linking data science and society

Twenty-eight undergraduate students from across the United States and the globe arrived at the Yale School of Public Health in mid-June with stories to tell about themselves. They had some foundations in data science, they said, but wanted to improve their knowledge and learn more. They were particularly curious about how their coding skills can improve human health. Some wanted to be physicians, many wanted to be statisticians or data scientists. Most wanted to explore options for their future.

While they came away from Big Data Summer Immersion at Yale (BDSY) with more confidence in their data science skills, they learned something more – how to think and talk about science and the science of data.

For Abhroneel Ghosh, who came all the way from the Indian Statistical Institute, that means having a new understanding about how statistics can be used to solve health challenges and make a difference in the world. Anthony Zhao from Duke University, who is planning to apply to medical school, became interested in how patient data can be collected and applied to public health research.

Isabelle Summe from the University of Chicago, who wants to work in cancer research, saw public health more clearly. “Public health has more doors open to making real change in peoples' lives,” she said. So did Tony Bolea, a Yale College student who was introduced to the concept of data equity. “I didn’t realize that data inequality can lead to inequitable outcomes,” he said.

"The students learned to see the world of science more broadly, and to tell stories about it,” said Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, PhD, senior associate dean of public health, data science, and data equity. “Through hands-on training, mentorship, and collaboration, these future leaders explored how big data can contribute to human flourishing,” said Mukherjee, PhD, who launched BDSY at YSPH this summer after leading a similar program at the University of Michigan for 10 years. She is also the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Biostatistics, professor of epidemiology (chronic diseases) and of statistics and data science.

BDSY’s co-directors are Dr. Fan Li, PhD, associate professor of biostatistics and of medicine (cardiovascular medicine), and Dr. Terika McCall, MPH, MBA, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics (health informatics).

The BDSY students revised the stories they arrived with after hearing YSPH faculty tell theirs. Dr. McCall described in her “journey lecture” how a slowing economy in 2010 led her to move to North Caroline for a research position, where she would end up pursuing an MBA and PhD to acquire valuable project management and health informatics expertise. Dr. Harsh Parikh, PhD, who talked about how statistics can identify underrepresented populations in opioid treatment trials, left an applied scientist position at Amazon to focus on public health. And Dr. Albert Ko, MD, Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health talked about the twists and turns of his own career, from chemical engineering to medicine.

Student Jamie Pelayo from UCLA was inspired by Dr. Ko’s journey. “I had thought it was too late for me to pivot,” said Jamie, whose story from an early age was that he would become a physician. He’s still likely to pursue medicine but is open to other storylines as well.

“Academic trajectories and paths are never proscribed," said Ko, who is professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) and of medicine (infectious diseases)."These journey lectures do not serve to tell students and colleagues what needs to be done but rather they serve as examples of how scientists channel their inner motivations and aspirations into asking questions and doing science.”

Gaining a new perspective on public health

Meet Jamie Pelayo

• Junior at the University of California, Los Angeles

• Major: Physiology and Bioinformatics

• Hometown: Chino Hills, California

• Fun fact: Jaime enjoys hiking and has backpacked over 60 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.

All his life, Jamie Pelayo thought he would become a physician. But working in a hospital, he saw first-hand how difficult it is for individuals from his Mexican community to access health care. Jamie entered the BDSY program to improve his computational skills but left with a new perspective on what his future could be. Although medical school is still a possibility, Jamie now sees that while physicians care for individual patients, public health practitioners can scale interventions to help entire communities.

Discovering data equity as a pillar of health equity

Meet Tony Bolea

• Sophomore at Yale University (Davenport College)

• Major: Cognitive Science

• Hometown: Richmond Hills, Georgia

• Fun fact: Tony composes music and enjoys improvising new songs on the piano.

An aspiring physician, Tony’s studies are in the interdisciplinary major of Cognitive Sciences at Yale. Tony applied to BDSY hoping to blend his interests in medicine and public health, feeling his work needs to address systemic disparities. At BDSY, he saw the potential of public health data science to improve societal well-being and the important connection between data equity and health equity. “I didn’t realize that data inequality can lead to inequitable outcomes. Data equity is a field that opened to me,” Tony said.

Teaching, and learning from, her peers

Meet Malia Schomaker

• Senior at the University of Washington – Seattle

• Major: Statistics

• Hometown: Corpus Christi, Texas

• Fun fact: Malia hated math when she was a kid!

Malia found her way to math with the help of her seventh-grade math teacher. By the end of high school, she was teaching at a Mathnasium center that her father started. At BDSY, she helped teach statistics to her peers in the program while they helped her understand the genome. “One of the great things about the program is that we have time to teach [each other],” she said. Before BDSY, Malia was thinking about incorporating health policy into her studies and becoming a lawyer but now sees opportunities for herself in public health.

Questioning causation instead of correlation

Meet Abhroneel Ghosh

• PhD student studying statistics at the University of California, Berkeley

• His undergraduate degree is from the Indian Statistical Institute , Kolkata

• Hometown: Kolkata, India

• Fun fact: Abhroneel enjoys juggling, which he finds to be de-stressing and meditative.

The diversity of ideas at BDSY stood out to Abhroneel. “It was overall a very well-rounded program,” he said. The journey lecture topics were particularly interesting to him, especially those given by experts in astronomy and economics. BDSY gave him a closer look at high-level public health research, and how statistics can be used to make a difference in the world. He was especially interested in learning more about causal inference. His work is in epidemiology (infant and maternal care), measuring infection risk in infants.

Acquiring a comfort level in biostatistics

Emma Abraham

• Junior at the University of Texas, Austin

• Major: Public Health

• Hometown: Flower Mound, Texas

• Fun fact: Emma enjoys gardening at her school’s community garden.

As a public health major, Emma felt she needed better computational and statistical skills to conduct research in her area of interest: global nutrition and food systems. She hopes to use data to protect communities from nutrition-related chronic diseases. Due to her experience with public health modeling at BDSY, she now feels ready to go back to her university and complete her research. “I feel so much more comfortable; I have a foundation to continue learning biostatistics,” she said.

Excited about biostatistics

Meet Daegan Cutter

• Junior at Yale University (Pierson College)

• Major: Statistics and Data Science

• Hometown: San Anselmo, California

• Fun fact: Daegan volunteers for his county’s search and rescue team, helping to bring lost hikers and dementia patients to safety.

Daegan came to BDSY to explore his interests in fields related to statistics, data science, and public health, hoping to narrow his options for post-graduate studies. He is most passionate about public health modeling and hopes to explore implementation science as well. At BDSY, he learned methods to analyze data that felt very real-world and applicable. “I definitely have more ideas of what I want to explore and there are more than I realized,” he said. “I would say I’m more excited about biostatistics.”

Making real change in people’s lives

Meet Isabella Summe

• Senior at the University of Chicago

• Major: Data Science and Statistics

• Hometown: San Francisco Bay Area

• Fun fact: Isabella has a large extended family of nearly 100 people.

Isabella is most passionate about exploring how machine learning can be used to improve health care outcomes. Although she had no previous public health experience, she was curious about what a career in public health looked like. She is interested in cancer research and infectious disease modeling, and saw herself in some of BDSY’s journey lectures, especially by people like her with technical backgrounds whose public health expertise led to tangible impacts on communities. “Public health has more doors open to making real change in peoples' lives,” she said.

Applying data to public health research

Meet Anthony Zhao

• Senior at Duke University

• Major: Biology

• Hometown: Lexington, Massachusetts

• Fun fact: Anthony competes in the North American contract bridge championships.

Anthony was inspired at BDSY up until the end of the final journey lecture given by Assistant Professor Harsh Parikh (biostatistics), who showed how statistics can be used to identify underrepresented populations in opioid treatment trials. This got Anthony thinking about data collection and how scientific questions are formed. Anthony is interested in how patient interactions can inform data collection, and is considering MPH programs as well as medical school. Zhao already uses data science for real world applications: He's a founding member of Duke's contract bridge club and draws on his knowledge of statistical inference when playing.