2019 Program Participants

 

Kimberlyn Bailey is a 2016 graduate, earning Philosophy and General Science degrees from State University of New York at Oswego and Le Moyne College respectively. Since then, she has been a computational neuroscience and sociology of STEM researcher as a trainee at the National Institutes of Health, USA and as a US Student Fulbright grantee at Technical University of Dresden, Germany. Kimberlyn plans to complete a PhD in biostatistics or a related field to equip herself for a career in sociology and biomedical research.


Abigail Derton is a senior at the University of Texas at Arlington who will graduate in December 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. She intends to pursue a PhD in biostatistics or computational biology and aspires to become a professor at a research university and focus her research in the area of quantitative biology. Abigail hopes that as a professor, she can progress mathematical applications not only through research, but through inspiring future students to pursue careers in mathematics.


Orandy Forth is a student at the University of Buffalo where he is studying biostatistics in the Public Health Program with a graduation year of 2021. His plan for graduate school involves a Master’s Degree in Biostatistics and Mathematics. His future career goals involve working with others, helping improve lives of the sick, preventing injuries, and making the world around me a better place. Orandy believes that becoming a public health professional with a biostatistics degree could greatly guide him in the right direction to accomplish his objectives. The public health degree would help to change the world around him (global health), while the biostatistics degree would assist him in deciding why different groups and countries are affected more greatly with health inequality than others. Orandy believes the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Summer Program will have a tremendous impact on his career goals since it would allow him to show his dedication to biostatistics and desire to create change.


Alexa N. Gonzalez Figueroa is a fifth-year student at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, where she is majoring in Pure Mathematics with a minor in Statistics. While she’s still passionate about mathematics, after taking her first statistics class, she realized applied math was her biggest interest. She also had the opportunity to work in mathematical biology research at a 2017 summer program at Ohio State University and attended Dr. Rafael Irizarry’s talk on April 28, 2018 about the Estimates of Excess Deaths in Puerto Rico following Hurricane María, which developed her interest in Biostatistics. This semester she had the chance to take a course in Data Science which helped develop her skills in programming, and also worked on research project in a Data Mining course about predicting if a person is likely to have a heart disease or not, which she will be presenting at a conference next year. Alexa’s future interests are graduate studies in Biostatistics and wants to be involved in multidisciplinary research.


Daisy Hernandez is a first-generation college student from Houston, Texas. She is currently a second-year math major at Grinnell College. She is also a pre-med student who is passionate about mathematics and medicine. Daisy wants to continue her education in math and medicine to learn how to integrate both fields. To deepen her knowledge of these fields and how they complement one another, she is considering medical school or graduate school. Daisy aspires to earn a MD or a PhD in these fields to pursue a career that weaves together both of my passions.


Claidys Spercival Lanzot Cruz is 23 years old. He is an undergrad sixth-year senior from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. He is majoring in Applied Statistics in Business School and has a second concentration in Pure Mathematics. During this last semester, Claidys has worked as an intern doing statistical analysis for the Marketing and Customer Knowledge Department at Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, the most important bank in Puerto Rico. Once he finishes his Bachelor’s degree he is going to do a Master’s in Business Analytics. In the far future, Claidys would like to return to academia and be a professor.


Quoc Nguyen is a recent graduate from Brown University Class of 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics. Quoc is originally from District 6, Saigon, Vietnam. Quoc was a student at the Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City High School for the Gifted, before coming to the United States 6 years ago to attend Blair Academy in New Jersey. Quoc shows strong interest in Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, has a background in Neuroscience and Biology, and loves all things science, especially the natural sciences. Quoc is seeking to incorporate his mathematical and programming skills to projects within the biological and medical science. Quoc comes to the program with hopes that the program will provide him with fresh insight into the versatility of quantitative methods, and prepare him for his upcoming work at Mount Sinai concerning applying statistical methods and machine learning techniques to analyze human disease genomics.

 


Jeffrey Okewunmi is a recent graduate from Brown University, finishing in May 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in biology, focusing in the areas of physiology and biotechnology. Jeffrey is passionate about developing a quantitative approach to medicine, integrating his interests in mathematics and helping others through medical and public health research. In his career, he aspires to become a physician that works to allow his clinical work and his research to simultaneously inspire and inform one another. His interests include addressing health disparities comprising of different intersectional factors, especially those prevalent within the African American community. In the fall, Jeffrey will be attending the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a medical student.


Ian Reyes is a junior at The University of Texas at El Paso, majoring in pre-med physics. An early interest in the medical field was established through his classes and research. After graduating in May 2021, Ian has plans to matriculate into a medical school to become a Medical Doctor, or a PhD program in the field of public health.  His main aspiration envelops the improvement of the medical field through innovative methods, medicine, and technology, in order to serve minorities whose quality of life could be changed for the better.


Ana Stevens is a junior at Pomona College where she is pursuing a B.A. in Biology with a minor in Math. She is interested in exploring how the burden of zoonotic and other infectious diseases is changing with the effects of climate change. When not studying biology and math, Ana dances with her school’s ballroom dance team. She is excited to go to graduate school to continue to study biostatistics and epidemiology.


Sabrina Trombetta is a rising junior at Amherst College intending to major in biochemistry and statistics. She hopes to apply statistics to advance interdisciplinary research. After graduating in May 2021, Sabrina plans to pursue a career in medicine or public health. 

 


Carissa Villanueva was born in Austin, Texas and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She is a junior at Saint Louis University majoring in Mathematics and Anthropology and is also a McNair Scholar and Math Alliance member. Carissa aims to pursue a PhD in Biostatistics after graduation, and possibly go into academia.

 


Postbac

Quentin D. Bethune graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 2019 with a B.Sc. in biochemistry and molecular biology, and a minor in mathematics. His interests are currently in large-scale analysis biomedical data using modern techniques in biostatistics. Quentin plans to pursue graduate studies in a related field, broadly focused on researching the relationships between genetic diseases and related molecular markers. Ultimately, his career goal is to enter the private sector and apply biostatistical techniques to optimize the processes of drug development and discovery.