10 students from Maryland and beyond will work on projects in bioinformatics, AI, population health and more.
This summer, 10 interns will join the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC) in North Bethesda, Maryland, where they’ll work alongside faculty members and gain hands-on research experience in subjects including applied artificial intelligence (AI), bioinformatics and population health.
“Interns help fulfill an important part of the institute’s mission: to train young scientists to leverage the power of advanced computing to improve health outcomes and care delivery across Maryland and beyond,” said Bradley Maron, UM-IHC co-executive director and the Melvin Sharoky, MD Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).
By embedding trainees with UM-IHC computational scientists, clinicians, biomedical engineers and public health researchers, “we put them at the forefront of collaborative translational research in health and medicine,” added Adam Porter, UM-IHC co-executive director and a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). “We’re pleased to give these next-generation scientists opportunities to grow as they carve out exciting and meaningful careers.”
The bulk of the students are participating in UM-IHC’s Research Internship and Summer Experience (RISE) program, which allows undergraduate, graduate and medical students to engage directly with the institute’s interdisciplinary teams and translational work.
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Mokshitha Chimbili, a 2nd-year medical student at UMSOM, will assess the comprehensiveness of primary care access among Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes. Chimbili is mentored by Rozalina McCoy, director of UM-IHC’s Center for Population Health and an associate professor of medicine at UMSOM. |
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Alicia Hawkins, who graduated in May with a B.S. in neuroscience from UMCP, will study diabetes care and shared decision-making in clinical environments. She is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Alyssa Talerico, a 2nd-year medical student at UMSOM who received her B.S. in biological sciences in 2021 from UMCP, will explore trends in the use of GLP-1 and metabolic bariatric surgery by rurality, demographics and insurance type. She is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Grace Huang, a senior biochemistry major at UMCP, will examine the geospatial distribution of obesity and food availability, exercise places and walkability. She is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Jean Lee, a sophomore computer science and neuroscience major at Northwestern University, will work on developing machine learning and artificial intelligence models to predict diagnoses and optimal treatment plans from patients’ biomedical data. Lee is mentored by UM-IHC faculty member Najib El-Sayed, director of UM-IHC’s Bioinformatics Research Center and a professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at UMCP. |
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Sanjana Jha, a 2nd-year medical student at UMSOM, will study patterns of primary care and endocrinology use among older adults with diabetes. Jha is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Hannah Keshmiri, a junior majoring in psychology at UMCP, will investigate how the level of comprehensive primary care relates to diabetes management outcomes. Keshmiri is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Joshua Morgenstern, a biomedical sciences and biotechnology master’s student at the University of Colorado Anschutz, will work on biomedical informatics, electronic health records, and natural language processing applications. Morganstern is mentored by UM-IHC faculty member Ian Brooks. |
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Alyssa Payne, a junior studying public health science at UMCP, will investigate the association between comprehensive primary care and diabetes outcomes. Payne is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
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Samy Haidar, a 2nd-year medical student at UMSOM, will explore address-level social determinants of health to predict lower extremity amputations among patients with diabetes. He is mentored by Rozalina McCoy. |
