The Alan Turing Institute is taking part in the HDR UK’s The Health Data Science (HDR UK) Black Internship programme for a second year by hosting two interns in the Research Engineering Group (REG).
Starting on Monday 3 July, the two interns will work on health data science projects – one relating to synthetic health data and the other an online platform to support autistic people.
The HDR UK Black Internship Programme is aimed at early career Black data scientists – a heavily under-represented group in the sector.
Olajumoke Olatunji will help explore the challenges of using synthetic data generation methods in a health setting. This project will generate synthetic data sets based on a subset of UCLH’s patient records and evaluate the fidelity, utility, and privacy of these data sets.
Obinna Ofomah will help to build a functional platform for Autistic people, called AutSPACES, to share experiences about sensory processing.
The UK has an urgent need for new health data scientists in this rapidly expanding field. The programme aims to not only continue tackling the underrepresentation of Black people within the health data science sector, but to also provide motivated candidates with the experience they need to kick-start their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers.
Supporting the training of early career researchers across sectors with the necessary breadth and depth of technical and professional skills in data science is a key part of the Turing’s strategy.
Dr Helen Duncan, a Research Software Engineer at The Alan Turing Institute, said: “We’re pleased to continue our partnership with HDR UK for a second year by welcoming Olajumoke and Obinna to work on two health data science projects. We look forward to working together over the coming months and sharing skills and experiences.”
Markus Hauru, a Research Data Scientist at The Alan Turing Institute, said: “Data science has huge potential for improving healthcare, but the field needs more skilled people. This internship will help us to share important expertise and we look forward to working closely with Olajumoke and Obinna over the coming weeks."
The internships run for eight weeks with 54 host organisations including Cancer Research UK, Office for National Statistics and The Health Foundation.
