Will Powell graduated in May 2024 from Duke’s Master of Biostatistics program. He is pursuing a PhD degree in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.
Educational Journey
- Could you share your academic background and what led you to pursue a Master’s in Biostatistics at Duke? – I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon in 2022, and as late as my senior year I was unsure of what I wanted to do. I enjoyed my statistics classes, so I met with one of my professors to discuss career options, and his background happened to be in biostatistics. To my surprise, he told me that I could absolutely go into a career in Biostatistics with a math degree. I thought the chance to work in the medical field sounded much more interesting to me than the other options I was considering, and he naturally mentioned Duke as a great place to apply.
- What inspired you to continue with a doctorate after completing the Master’s program? – I really enjoy doing research and having original projects, which I got experience during my years as a Master’s student publishing a paper and completing my thesis and is the most important aspect of pursuing a PhD. I also worked at a large pharmaceutical company for a summer and the opportunities there in industry were greater for people with doctorate degrees.
Experiences and Impact
- Were there any specific projects, internships, or research experiences during your Master's education that influenced your decision to pursue a doctorate? – I got experience working with real-world data, specifically Electronic Health Record data, and exposure with the methods needed to gain insights with this type of data. Realizing the number of higher-level projects that were possible made me excited to pursue a doctorate.
- Could you describe a memorable mentorship experience you had at Duke? How did it shape your career or academic goals? – I had a good experience working with Dr. Ben Goldstein on my Master’s project and got some experience with methods related to Causal Inference. This has helped me as I transitioned to research in a Causal Inference Artificial Intelligence lab at WashU.
Research and Career Path
- What areas of biostatistics or related fields are you currently researching, and what excites you about this work? – Biomedical Informatics is about 95% similar to Biostatistics, but it is a slightly different field. It is more focused on data science and machine learning methods with observational Electronic Health Record data. Lately I have been researching using machine learning to predict patients with depression from voice data and developing a new Bayesian machine learning model that uses the Variational Autoencoder architecture to conduct causal inference on survival analysis data from observational studies.
- What are some skills or techniques from Duke’s Master’s program that you use most frequently in your current research or studies? – I got a lot out of the data science courses that I took, with Python and deep learning techniques being taught in those. The statistical theory and R programming language skills from the program have also given me a leg up as I have transitioned to a PhD.
Advice for Current and Prospective Students
- What advice would you give to students considering a Master’s in Biostatistics or a doctoral program? – There are great opportunities in Biostatistics both at the Master’s or the PhD level, and learning the skills necessary opens a lot of possibilities across academia or industry. It is also okay to not have an entire career mapped out immediately, I gained a lot of insight into what I wanted to do as I got more exposure to the field.
- What resources, classes, or activities would you recommend to current Master’s students who are thinking about pursuing a PhD? – PhDs are about doing research, so any research opportunities or experiences are great to get exposure to. In terms of classes, different programs will look for different things. The programs I was looking at were more focused on data science, so I took more classes focused on advanced data science. Students considering PhDs in Biostatistics could look at taking courses with some theoretical statistics.
Reflections and Looking Ahead
- Where do you hope to see yourself professionally in the next five to ten years? – Taking things one step at a time, hopefully I will be completing my PhD in that time. I am considering both academia and industry routes currently, so hopefully in focusing on completing my PhD I can gain some clarity into making a decision.
- Any last thoughts on the importance of biostatistics in today’s world and what keeps you passionate about the field? - Biostatistics is a great field, full of exciting challenges and meaningful outcomes. It will be a driving force in the field of medicine and medical research as AI and other technologies continue to develop. Being involved in this keeps me excited about the field.