A Student Highlight Featuring MPH Student Afra Shamnath
Unlike medicine or teaching, epidemiology isn’t exactly the kind of profession that people hear about growing up. And like many public health professionals who come to the field by following a unique path, Afra Shamnath began in Kerala, India, by earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biotechnology and oncology, respectively. Soon she was working as a researcher — during the Covid-19 pandemic — at the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Biology, using data to track the evolution of the novel virus’ genome.
While Afra found the experience rewarding, having been thrown in the midst of critical and time-sensitive epidemiological research with minimal training made her realize how much there was to learn. “I loved how the work had an impact on saving lives during the pandemic,” said Afra, “but I recognized there was still specialized knowledge to develop, and that motivated me to pursue an MPH with a concentration in epidemiology.”
Afra was drawn to the program at NYU GPH because of its strong epidemiology and biostatistics curriculum — not to mention its location in New York City, a global hub of public health organizations. So far, she’s found the experience to be extremely valuable. “The coursework is rigorous, and the faculty are passionate about public health,” she said. “I've learned a lot and grown both professionally and personally.”
In particular, Afra has enjoyed courses that demonstrate public health principles in real life, such as Brian Spitzer’s Psychometric Measurement and Analysis. “There are lots of concepts you hear a lot on a daily basis, but you don’t know what they exactly mean,” Afra said. “Dr. Spitzer made them easy to understand.”
This summer, Afra had an opportunity to test and improve her skills with an internship at NYU Langone’s Neuromodulation Lab, which uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) therapy, delivering a low electric current to the scalp, to help people with neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis better manage their symptoms. Afra’s work focused on statistical software like R and SPSS to analyze datasets for the lab’s multiple sclerosis clinical trial.
This position, which she learned about and applied for through the Public Health Post, GPH’s career newsletter, enabled her to put her data analysis skills to good use. “With my courses in epidemiology, biostatistics and data analysis, I could really hit the ground running at this internship. I already had some of the core skills to jump into data analysis,” she said. Her involvement in the project also helped her see the importance of data-driven interventions, and taught her more about the clinical research process.
Afra is thrilled to keep exploring epidemiology and the public health opportunities that New York City has to offer. “When I worked as a researcher in India during the pandemic, we had an amazing team that worked around the clock. I loved how the work had a huge impact on saving lives during the pandemic. I’m self-taught in a lot of technical skills, but I recognize there’s still so much more expertise to develop.”