Asma Asghar graduated in May 2022 from Barnard College of Columbia University majoring in Human Rights and Neuroscience and Behavior. Asma’s interest in public health and community activism began in her secondary school when she was inspired to address educational disparities in her immigrant community in college. Asma was a UN IVY STEM Connect tutor, where she led research projects for high school girls in Cameroon through Zoom to address gender equality in education and to empower girls and young women in developing regions with Master’s students from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Asma also helped host fundraisers to raise funds to fight against gender inequality to support girls in Nepal, India, and Tanzania who were the first in their family to graduate high school as part of She’s The First. As the president of Columbia University’s Global Medical Brigades, Asma organized and volunteered in service trips in remote, rural Panama and Honduras to help set up free clinics in underserved communities.
During the COVID-19 Education Empowerment Internship with Weill Cornell Medicine, Asma raised awareness to debunk COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, encouraging communities of color to become vaccinated. Discussing how structural inequities perpetuate health disparities in minority communities, like her own, empowers her to help remedy systemic barriers to healthcare. Asma is thrilled to combine her interest in public health with biostatistics at the Summer Program in Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Adina Cazacu-De Luca is a rising junior at Columbia University studying biochemistry and anthropology on the pre-med track. They are a first-generation Panamanian- and Romanian-American committed to decreasing health inequities and hope to pursue a MD-PhD with graduate work in environmental epidemiology or biostatistics.
Adina’s previous work through the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and the Columbia Daily Spectator has examined social vulnerability and environmental exposures in Native American communities, machine-learning models to predict groundwater arsenic in South Dakota, air pollution and lead contamination in New York City parks, and nutritious food access in New York City. In their free time, they enjoy volunteering as an English teacher to recent immigrants.
Dayanlee De León Cordero is a computer science major at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras. She will be starting her fourth year in August 2022 and hopes to continue graduate studies in computational biology.
Dayanlee’s goal is to pursue a career in research focused on structural biology or genomics.
Amia Graye is a senior at Georgetown University majoring in mathematics. She plans to continue on to graduate school for biostatistics.
Amia desires to improve healthcare for the black community in the DC area and specialize in pathological or cardiovascular studies. Her ultimate goal is to work for NIH as a biostatistician or research analyst.
Maya Lightfoot is a rising senior at Tufts University. She is a Biology major with minors in Computer Science and Cognitive and Brain Science. She plans to obtain her Ph.D in Computational Biology following a gap year to gain work experience.
Maya’s career aspirations are influenced by both her studies and her time in a molecular biology lab. She believes computing is an important new piece to understanding the human genome, and as a result wants to perform genomics research.
Yuki Low is a senior Statistics and Biology double major attending the University of Michigan. She is pursuing an accelerated master’s degree in Biostatistics. Afterwards, she plans to continue her education and pursue her PhD.
Yuki aspires to be a leading professor and researcher at an accredited university. As a first generation college student, she hopes to give back to her community after she graduates and help guide other first generation college students to find their own passion.
Javlon Nizomov is an incoming junior at the University of Florida majoring in public health. His current research interests lie broadly within integrating the skills in programming and data science he has attained over the years to developing prognostic models for predicting health outcomes.
Through this biostatistics program, Javlon will gain the knowledge and skills needed to make an impact through his research.
Sean O’Connor is currently a junior at Lake Forest College majoring in Mathematics and Data Science on the Statistics track. After graduating in the spring of 2024, he plans on pursuing graduate school to study either Statistics or Machine Learning.
Sean’s career aspirations are motivated by the many applications of data analytics in the field of biology, particularly in public health and climatology. He hopes to combine his two childhood passions for statistics and biology to help combat the future environmental challenges associated with industrialization.
Samantha Reynoso is a senior student at the University of Connecticut studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and will graduate in December 2022. She is passionate about bioinformatics, data science, machine learning, data visualization and statistical analysis.
Samantha plans to combine her experience from wet lab research and her passion for dry-lab skills in order to continue her academic career in graduate school. After graduate studies, Samantha has hopes to build a start-up biotechnology company surrounding her passions.
José C. Sánchez Curet is a Computer Science student at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. He is passionate about AI, Machine Learning and Data Visualization, especially its ethical analysis and application into climate change and social related topics. In his spare time he loves to work on analysis of algorithms and the the thought process and creation of software, mostly emphasized on social impact, productivity, and finance.
José plans to use his computer science and research skills to keep working to improve people’s lifestyles through social and medical studies. He believes in working with professionals of different fields of science using multidisciplinary skills to create solutions that are efficient, prompt, and impact multiple groups of people.
Michael H. Terrefortes Rosado is a fourth-year student majoring in Computer Science at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. Since he was a child, he has always had an interest in technology. Michael is graduating in May 2023 after his fifth year of undergraduate studies and hopes to pursue graduate studies in Computer Science.
Michael is interested in data science, machine learning, big data, and bioinformatics and hopes to do research in these areas. After graduate studies, he hopes to continue researching and joining academia or the tech industry.
