Briana Stephenson, assistant professor of biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, develops biostatistical models to better understand population health disparities. In this Q&A, she shares what motivates her work and the broad applications of her research.

Q: How did you become interested in biostatistics and public health?

A: I’ve always loved math, but I also was really interested in the life sciences. Around 7th grade when I was first exposed to life science, my teacher told me, “You’re going to be a doctor.” So I went down that route and stayed pretty rigid. Every decision that I made through school and college was with the intention of becoming a physician.

When I got to college, I was a math major and pre-med. While the topic of health and medicine interested me, I found myself more captivated in my math courses. I loved learning how mathematical theories and principles could be applied to solve interesting problems, from understanding traffic flow on the Massachusetts Turnpike to finding disease causes in vulnerable populations. However, I stayed on the pre-med track. It was not until my first semester of medical school that I found myself at a crossroad.

At medical school, while I wanted to improve the health of my community, my scope of impact was limited to the individual patient level. As part of my practical training, I worked at a children’s sports clinic, where I saw a lot of repetition of injuries and treatment plans. Over time, I began to notice patterns in the types of injuries being presented, based on the patient’s age, neighborhood, and other demographics. My attention began to shift to identifying the source of these clustered cases to better strategize interventions to reduce the number of injuries within these patient groups.

I took a seminar in epidemiology and biostatistics and learned how I could use math to quantify and explain trends at the population level, and predict the impact that interventions could have on the community if implemented. That seminar is what ultimately motivated my pivot from medical school to public health.

Read the full article about biostatistics by Jay Lau at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.