Melody Goodman spent two years as a financial analyst on Wall Street after earning an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics and statistics and economics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She recalls that it didn't take long for her to tire of managing wealth. Instead, she wanted to use her skills to help people who were struggling, especially those who grew up-like she did-in a public housing complex.
Somewhere along the line, she was introduced to biostatistics, and that changed her life.
"When I discovered biostatistics, I said this was my way to help people and to use math," she said. She followed that interest to HSPH, where she was awarded a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development pre-doctoral fellowship to support her graduate studies.
She completed a master's degree in biostatistics in 2003, and on June 8, will receive her doctorate in biostatistics from the HSPH Department of Biostatistics and Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with minors in theoretical statistics and the social determinants of health disparities.
Her research has focused on statistical methods for analyzing data from community-based interventions and racial/ethnic health disparities research.
"Community-based research is an exciting new field," she explained. "This is the tool that is going to get us the information we need to really make a difference."
"I want to know why African Americans are experiencing higher cancer mortality, higher rates of hypertension [than other ethnic groups]," she said. "Why do African-American women have higher breast cancer mortality, even though white women have higher incidence?"
Goodman is especially interested in behavioral changes that can reduce the risk for preventable diseases. With her advisor Dr. Yi Li and researchers from the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, she has worked on developing statistical methodologies to evaluate interventions designed to address multiple risk factors. These new interventions are valuable, as many public health concerns, such as cancer and infant mortality, can be affected by a variety of interrelated factors, including fruit and vegetable consumption, access to health care, and physical activity.
"From a prevention perspective, you have to look at the model that's really going to work in that population," she said. "We want to change diet and exercise-if we can-instead of changing one risk factor."
This summer, Goodman will return to Stony Brook as an Assistant Professor in a new Graduate Program in Public Health, a division of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Goodman is excited to work on improving health in the community where she grew up-Jamaica, Queens, New York City. She doesn't look too far into the future, however. Every plan she has ever made has changed, she said, so she always leaves her options "open."
—PHC
Copyright, 2009, President and Fellows of Harvard College
