Hannah Graff
Like everyone else, the HealthLumen team has been working hard these last few months to continue our work and navigate the new realities of a COVID-19 world. We have written about the role of modelling in post-COVID-19 decision making and have been working with various partners on the links between NCDs and COVID-19 outcomes. Despite the challenges, we have successfully brought on our first cohort of summer interns – an international group of accomplished young professionals from across the population health and data science space, coming to us from institutions such as Imperial College London, the London School of Economics, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Cambridge.
In the first of a number of posts, we hear direct from the interns on their work with us and their experiences this summer.
I am currently studying towards a MSc in Global Health Policy at the London School of Economics and have an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science from Imperial College London. This summer I have been able to tactfully transfer epidemiological, population health, and public policy knowledge, research and experience into tangible outcomes and real-world results through my internship with HealthLumen. Having become increasingly aware of the importance and benefits of using computer-based modelling to both predict and evaluate health outcomes in relation to health policy responses, but with limited experience in health technology, HealthLumen has been the ideal environment to engage in chronic disease microsimulation modelling and improve my functional knowledge in the field.
I have been engaged in a number of projects across the organisation. My work so far has included modelling population health data on the potential impacts of non-communicable diseases on Covid-19 outcomes under different scenarios in Europe; and evaluating the prevalence and associated costs of acute kidney injury in the UK. Working at HealthLumen has provided numerous opportunities to educate myself, learn new skills and grow within a thriving team of approachable, committed, reliable and academically diverse group of talented individuals.
I have an undergraduate degree in medicine and currently studying for a MSc in Health Data Analytics and Machine Learning at Imperial College London. I am very interested in developing innovative digital health products and services and I feel fascinated by the work HealthLumen does as I love exploiting data science knowledge and skills to solve medical and health problems.
My HealthLumen project revolves around creating a surrogate or meta model to map the relationship between microsimulation model inputs and outputs namely in forecasting and estimating the prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease stages in the UK population. Although the pandemic has negatively impacted higher education and research across the UK, my virtual internship experience has been very educational and exciting. The company employs digital communication and project management tools that can really make the work flow very efficient and flexible. I usually wake up around 8 am and once I finish having my breakfast, I start my work by setting my Slack status as “working online” and then communicate with my project supervisor and other team members to catchup and plan the next steps of the project. Working with HealthLumen has been fun – a lot of Zoom catch-ups, sometimes with games and quizzes. It’s been a great opportunity to get to know and work with such a great team!