I could feel the buzz of curiosity when I walked into a room of 15 undergraduates who were ready to dive into the world of Biostatistics. I was really excited not only because I’ll get to share what I know, but also because I knew I would learn just as much from the talented students.
The UMass Amherst Summer Workshop in Biostatistics, held June 9-20, 2025, brought together these talented undergraduates from across the country. Over the two weeks, they got to explore some fundamental and advanced statistical methods in public health through lectures, hands-on R sessions, and team projects.
This year, I had the privilege of facilitating the session on “Intermediate R”, which included basic modeling in R and making reproducible analysis dashboards using R Shiny. It was fun and rewarding to watch the “ahah!” moments when a student’s plot finally rendered and displayed correctly.
I also got the opportunity to mentor some of the participants as they explored various interesting projects. Sherry Zhang (Emory University) and Bao Nguyen (UMass Amherst) worked on “A Comparative Study of Machine-Learning Classifiers for Predicting HOLC Grades”, whereas Ana Hutchinson (Springfield College), Belle Song (Mount Holyoke College), and Monet Williams (UMass Amherst) worked on “Identifying Predictors of Type II Diabetes in the NHANES Study”. Their creativity in approaching problems and the thoughtful discussions were really admirable.
The workshop saw leading experts like Dr. Andrea Foulkes (Massachusetts General Hospital), Dr. Doris Damian (EMD Serono Inc.), Doug Arbetter (Moderna Inc.), among others, grace the occasion as they shared their unique career journeys. Not forgetting about the mountain hike! This was so tiring as my legs literally shook while we trekked, yet so exciting to walk with all the amazing students and facilitators while cracking all the interesting jokes we could.
Workshops like this don’t just teach skills. They make biostatistics accessible and exciting, as they spark interests in this field that plays a critical role in tackling some of the world’s public health challenges.
If you’re an undergraduate and curious about data and public health, I encourage you to keep an eye out for the next Summer Workshop in Biostatistics. Enquiries may be sent to umass.biostat.workshop@gmail.com.
Facilitating a session at the workshop