NIAID Emerging Leaders in Data Science Fellows

Niamh Mulrooney, M.D.

Niamh received her B.S. in Public Health Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was the inaugural fellow for the Emerging Leaders in Data Science Fellowship program. After completing the fellowship in 2019, Niamh conducted research in Swaziland under a Fulbright Scholarship before starting medical school at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Chris Barousse

Chris completed her B.S. in Statistics at Baylor University. Her fellowship rotations included projects on funding success, clinical trials, epidemiology, and microbiomes. After graduating in 2020, Chris started pursuing a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan.

Kelly Carey, M.P.H.

Kelly received her B.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University and her M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. Her fellowship rotations included work in epidemiology, biostatistics, and prediction of vaccine impact. Upon graduation in 2020, Kelly joined the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Byron Gaskin, M.S., Ph.D.

Byron completed his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Florida International University and both his M.S. in Mechanical Engineers and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University. He completed rotations in predictive modeling, artificial intelligence and machine learning  (AI/ML), and natural language processing during his fellowship. After graduating in 2020, Byron started as a data scientist with Booz Allen Hamilton.

Leo Meister, M.S.

Leo received both his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. During his fellowship, Leo completed rotations including machine learning, meta-analysis, immunology, and microbiome research. After graduating in 2020, Leo started working as a data scientist with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics.

Kyle Webb, M.S.

Kyle completed his B.S. in Statistics at Wake Forest University and his M.S. in Statistics at Virginia Tech. His fellowship rotations included software development, bioinformatics, computational modeling, and epidemiology. Kyle joined NHGRI as a contractor after graduating in 2020.

Sydney Foote, M.P.H.

Sydney received both her B.S. in Microbiology and her M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Before graduating from the fellowship in 2021, she completed rotations in bioinformatics, epidemiology, natural language processing, and data visualization. Sydney is now a data scientist with ODSET.

Sara Jones, M.S.

Sara completed her B.S. in Biological Science at the University of California, Davis and her M.S. in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University. Her fellowship rotations included proteomic analysis, bioinformatics, portfolio analysis, and natural language processing. Upon graduation in 2021, Sara started as a data scientist at National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Komi Messan, M.S., Ph.D.

Komi received his B.S. and M.S. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina A&T State University and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics for Life and Social Sciences at Arizona State University. During his fellowship, Komi completed rotations in portfolio analysis, text mining, and machine learning. Komi joined NIAID’s Office of Strategic Planning, Initiative Development, and Analysis as a mathematical statistician after graduating in 2021.

Meghan Hartwick, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Meg earned her M.Sc. in Conservation Medicine at Tufts University and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Evolution Systems Biology at University of New Hampshire. Her fellowship rotations included developing software and tools, harmonizing clinical trials data, forecasting with mathematical models, and bioinformatics. After her fellowship, Meg joined ODSET as a data scientist.

Lisa Mayer, M.P.H.

Lisa completed her M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. As a fellow, she worked on rotations in epidemiology, machine learning, natural language processing, FAIR data, web scraping, big data, and bioinformatics. She completed the fellowship in 2022 and works with ODSET as a data scientist.

Jennifer Rokhsar, D.V.M., M.P.H.

Jennifer received her D.V.M. from Cornell University in Production Animal Medicine and her M.P.H. from Drexel University in Epidemiology & Biostatistics. Her fellowship rotations involved mathematical modeling, software development, bioinformatics, and viral evolution. She finished the fellowship in 2022 and returned to practicing veterinary medicine while working on her Ph.D.

Mark Rustad, M.S., Ph.D.

Mark earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Minnesota. During his fellowship, he worked on projects covering topics such as data visualization, bioinformatics, data mining, machine learning, and using large public datasets. After graduating in 2022, Mark joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Fausto Andres Bustos Carrillo, M.A., Ph.D

Fausto received both a PhD in Epidemiology and an MA in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS in Epidemiology from Harvard University. His fellowship projects included data science landscape assessment, SARS-Cov-2 immunology, and links between climate change and health. He completed the fellowship in 2023 and joined NIH’s Division of Intramural Research as part of the Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) Fellowship.

Camille Lake, Ph.D.

Camille completed her Ph.D. in Immunology at Uniformed Services University. Her fellowship projects covered topics such as immunology, proteomics, bioinformatics, data visualization, and machine learning for drug prediction. In 2023, she joined Deloitte as a bioinformatics data scientist.

Diego Seira, M.S.

Diego earned his M.S. in Statistics and his B.S. in Mathematics at the University of Texas at El Paso. During his fellowship, his projects included developing a Python project for complex survival analysis, assessing COVID-19 hospitalization rates and risk factors for clinical trial design, and analyzing COVID-1 vaccine response for patients with immune deficiencies. After completing the fellowship in 2023, he joined NIAID’s Data Analysis Research Branch as a Statistician.

Linh Shinguyen, M.S.

Linh received his M.S. in Data Science from Vanderbilt University. As a fellow, he worked on natural language processing for research performance reports, predictive modeling for post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, multimodal characterization of Multiple Sclerosis patients, and other data science projects throughout the NIAID mission area. He graduated the fellowship in 2023 and joined the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Rahul Subramanian, Ph.D.

Rahul earned his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Chicago and his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University. His fellowship work included characterizing the DAIDS portfolio data landscape, evaluating impact of multiple COVID-19 exposures on breadth of immunity, and analysis of Phage-ImmunoPrecication sequencing data to quantify prior exposure to poxvirus. He completed the fellowship in 2023 to start an IRTA postdoctoral research fellowship in the Human Immunology Section of at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center.