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Aman: Folks, welcome back to another episode of the "I AM GPH" podcast. The Pathways into Quantitative Aging Research program is a summer program offered by the Department of Biostatistics at NYU GPH. It is engaged in three interrelated activities that aim to improve public health through rigorous research and that educate future practitioners, leaders, and researchers. Now, I can keep going on about this program, but rather than myself, we have Dr. Rebecca Betensky, and Vardia Duterville. Dr. Betensky is the chair of the biostatistics department and the program director for the PQAR program that we'll be talking about. And Vardia is program coordinator for PQAR, and the program administrator for biostatistics. We're so glad to have you on the "I AM GPH podcast." Welcome.
Vardia: Thank you for having us.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Aman: So I'd love to get started, how did this program start? How did it come into existence to begin with?
Rebecca: Okay, I'll start with that. So the history goes back, probably close to 30 years actually. So I was formerly a faculty member in the biostatistics department at the Harvard School of Public Health, and I had a colleague there in biostatistics, Louise Ryan is her name. And she was really visionary at the time in that she saw that biostatistics was a field that was really lacking in diversity, and that that was something that needed to be corrected. And so she was a pioneer really in that regard. And one way that she addressed it was by starting a summer program for undergraduates as what we call then a pipeline program. And the idea being to introduce undergraduates who have quantitative backgrounds, who have strong interests in quantitative areas, introducing them to biostatistics and quantitative public health as a career option. So she started a program at Harvard, as I said about 30 years ago, I became involved, I eventually took over the program as director there. And when I moved to NYU, four and a half years ago in 2018, one of the very, very first things that I did with my colleague Vardia was to apply to NIH for funding to start a similar but slightly different program at NYU. And so the program has been at NYU now for two and a half years.
Aman: Wow. What does the program mean to... why should people be aware of this program? What's the power behind this summer program like this?
Vardia: Well, I can jump in here. I'll say, given what we've all gone through for the last two and a half years, a lot of undergraduate students, and I think in general, a lot of us are interested in public health, and summer programs like this exist throughout the country. And with our opportunity, we're allowing students to come to NYU and learn the quantitative side of public health which is, as we know, very important to be able to go into spaces and discuss what's going on in research. And so with inviting students here to NYU, the New York City campus for six weeks, they get a really intense immersion experience within public health, quantitative public health methods, and in general what it looks like to enter a graduate program.
Rebecca: I'll jump in and add just one other piece to that is that one thing that we've discovered in our, in my, or that I've discovered with colleagues in my many years working on this is that there are many, many undergraduates in small schools, perhaps historically black universities and colleges, other minority serving institutions who are very strong in math, but are not aware of possible career options other than a traditional PhD in math which may be perfect for some people but others maybe want to use their math skills and quantitative skills in other applications. And so that's what this program provides is an opportunity to learn about those other options.
Aman: Let's zoom out. I'm sure a lot of students, future students, or even people watching this are curious about biostatistics, the importance of biostatistics. And then I think we'll hop into the program after that. What is biostatistics? Public health to a lot of people means different things. Why is biostatistics important?
Rebecca: Okay, I'll take that. So biostatistics is first of all really no different from statistics as a discipline other than its applications. So as far as statistics or biostatistics, both of them are disciplines that manage randomness and an error. And so they provide a way of quantifying how much we know from data. So quantifying the randomness in some kind of an estimate from data, whether it's a pandemic related estimate, or an estimate about Alzheimer's disease, progression rates. It gives tools and methods for being able to make inferences from data. And so, as I said, biostatistics is really just the application of the theory and fundamentals of statistics to public health. It could be to medicine, to sciences. So that's what we mean by biostatistics.
Aman: Understood. What are the kind of students y'all have noticed that thrive in the biostatistics environment with all the people that have come in, in your time of being running this program, or even in this department? What makes a student that thrives in biostatistics?
Vardia: I would, with having currently reading applications, in general, having done this for two years, students who are strong in the quantitative fields, so like your traditional mathematics or statistics. We do have some students who have been able to experience other similar REUs summer programs, who as Rebecca mentioned, may not have those opportunities at their home institutions, but they do have, say, a similar six week program experience with data analysis or like coding R, Python, what are the other ones, Stat, SaaS, just working with it either on their own taking the initiative to work with it, or having done a summer program. So strong quantitative, but over time we we've seen more students outside of that as well.
Rebecca: Yeah, I would add, so students who are excited and love math, or computer science, or data science, any of those fields. And it's not to say that they have to be a math major, or a data science major. We've had psychology majors who have done a lot of statistics through data analysis. We've had biology majors. So it's not about what you're majoring in, it's about what really excites you, what's fun. And then along with that, they should have an interest in health, whether it's public health, or individual health, meaning more medicine. Either of those would be sort of a natural fit for someone to go into biostatistics.
Vardia: Another major that I've noticed is nursing as well.
Aman: Wow. So where does the nursing angle come from, and how have you noticed it?
Vardia: Similar to what Rebecca mentioned, I would say like the traditional medicines, or having the opportunity to have done a similar summer program, or just statistic course in their training.
Aman: Love it. So this is applying, right, let's go to graduation. People that have a degree in biostatistics? Where does life take them that y'all have noticed so far?
Vardia: Biostatistics is a fantastic field to be in. And this has been known for many, many years, data science, which really is partly about statistics is a booming field. So there are many, many job opportunities for people who have degrees in biostatistics. So they could be at pharmaceutical companies. We've had graduates who have worked at Pfizer, for example, among many other pharmaceutical companies. Biostatisticians can work at tech companies, Amazon, Google, Facebook. We actually every year have a career panel at which we invite master's level biostatisticians to come and speak to our students about their careers, and how their education prepared them. And I'll put a plug for those, we have past years videos on our website. Every year we've had a very different assortment of people. We even had someone from Major League Baseball one year. So there's really many, many career options for people. And of course the more, the ones that you would normally think of, academic medical centers have large biostatistics departments that hire master's level biostatisticians, NGOs, many public health organizations, finance, lots of opportunities.
Aman: Imagine. So it's probably opening the minds of a lot of people that don't think of public health and biostatistics, which is very interesting even to me to hear that. I'd like to hear from the two of you about... Let's go back to the program, PQAR, what are the students' stories that we have seen? What happened to a student when they came in? What did they get out of this program?
Vardia: I think for me it's always thinking about the experiences students have prior to coming to us. So considering the majors that they may have, or the paths, I guess pathways that they've made to us, so to speak. So thinking to previous years, I can think of one of our students who was a political science major, and I never would've thought, say that they had any quantitative or statistical experience but that was something that they really had an interest in even though they were in a humanity, or traditional humanities field or whatnot. And I guess for me, also as an African-American woman, as a Haitian-American, children of immigrants, speaking to students who may struggle with say imposter syndrome, or like first generation trying to adjust to different spaces, PWIs, and being not a light, so to speak, but a recognizable face when they come to our program and they come to New York. And in general, I think all our students love coming to New York City 'cause it's like I'm in the Big Apple. I'm having a good time. It's summertime and I'm in Washington Square Park. You know seeing it in the movies and actually being able to experiencing it here. Academically, I enjoy seeing the transformation of the shy student who may not even wanna speak on a one-on-one basis, and seeing them at the end of our program, 'cause we hold a symposium where students present their projects in a audience, in front of their peers, whoever is around during the summer, and the confidence that they display in the information that they're relaying. And that's what this program is all about.
Aman: Beautiful. I mean there's so many facets, right, it's not only biostatistics, there's their personality, how they view the world, what they believe in themselves as well doing a program like this. Can you tell us more about the program? How long is it, what's the intensive of a program like this usually?
Rebecca: Oh, sure. So- Yeah, so our program is six weeks long. And I should say, I wanna make sure to mention this, we fully fund every aspect of the program for the students. We pay their transportation to and from New York, we pay for housing in an NYU dorm for the six weeks, and we're able to give them a pretty generous stipend, this summer it will be $5,000. Because we recognize that by participating in our program they can't be doing something else and making money. And so the day is packed, and I encourage all listeners to go to our website and click on our calendar from past summers. And you will see that of those six weeks every single day is jam packed with a variety of activities. We have courses not for credit — just to learn — in biostatistics, in epidemiology, in statistical computing. And we have professional development sessions where students hear from admissions officers about applying to graduate school. Students can take GRE preparation which we pay for if they're interested. The students meet with current graduate students, PhD students, master students, postdocs, students hear from faculty members about their own trajectories in the quantitative arena. And then actually the core of the program is the research project that students engage in with a faculty mentor and a graduate student mentor. Groups of three students work on each project. And so they're quite busy, but they get quite a lot out of it.
Vardia: And another thing Rebecca didn't mention is the fact that we do social activities with them as well.
Aman: Wow.
Vardia: We were graciously given funding from the office of the dean to be able to send students out to social activities throughout the city. So one of the things that I usually highlight when I go to conferences, they got to go to Broadway shows, one, let me be explicit by saying that, they got to go to a Broadway show completely for free. I think last year they went to "Aladdin."
Aman: Nice.
Vardia: And this year they get to choose themselves as a group. So it's really cool.
Aman: So it's a lot of care and effort put into each student. So I know we went into this, so what kind of a person should apply, but what do you look for in students that are applying, because there's so much that they're getting out of this, the work is put in, but what kind of student are you looking for?
Rebecca: Yeah, that's a great question. And that's something that we get asked a lot, and I'm always very happy to tell students that we don't have any strict criteria, we don't have a GPA cutoff, we don't have grade cutoffs. What we really do look at the whole picture. So we do look at courses that students have taken, we wanna see some demonstrated interest in quantitative areas, but we don't have anything specific in mind. So we're not looking for a specific course, maybe they've taken statistics, maybe they haven't, maybe they've taken computer science, maybe they haven't. We also look for, probably the most important part of the application is the personal statement. We want to hear how the student articulates their interest in the program. We want to hear the passion in their voice, the real excitement for data, for statistics, for all of that. So it's really the whole picture that we put all those pieces together, we integrate it all, and that's how we make our decisions.
Aman: So there's been... the program's been running for three and a half years, or two years?
Rebecca: We've had two summers so far. This coming summer will be our third summer.
Aman: This is at the time of the recording for whoever's watching this. How has this program evolved from the first year to now?
Rebecca: I'll let you take that, that's a good question.
Vardia: Well, from the first year we were virtual, so that was fun.
Rebecca: Oh, yes.
Vardia: We were completely virtual. So when we first started, we submitted the grant as Pipelines into Quantitative Aging Research. Now we are Pathways 'cause we found that language is important. So being impeccable, being important in the way that we are creating a guideline into biostatistics rather than stopping where that is. That didn't go anywhere, but I know what I'm trying to say. So that is one change. The stipend increase is another one.
Rebecca: Yeah, I mean, we actually have an evaluator. So we should say that our program is expensive for us. And we are very fortunate to be funded by the National Institutes of Health and in particular the National Institute on Aging funds the program. And then as Vardia mentioned the dean's office also gives us some funding to cover those costs that are not allowable to be charged to the NIH. And so part of our whole program is we have an evaluator. So we contract with an evaluator at the New York Academy of Medicine, so a seasoned and professional person with our group who does evaluation of programs. And they're very important to us because they meet with the students in-person, they send the students surveys. So we are getting constant feedback. And we try to make real time adjustments if we need to, if there's something that isn't working quite right we make adjustments, and during the course of the summer, but then certainly for the following summer. So one item in particular that we heard is that students really want to be hearing even more than we already were from faculty who look like them, or who are similar to them in certain ways. And so for this summer as we plan our upcoming program we're paying even more attention to that, we always have paid attention to it, now we're even putting more emphasis on that to make sure that we are doing that. So there's constant feedback and constant improvement.
Vardia: So yeah, the increase in representation of people of color, also a adjustment as far as the courses. So students that we didn't get a chance to dwell into what exactly students are doing from day-to-day, but for four weeks during the summer, students are taking a intro to biostatistics course, they are simultaneously taking a course into intro to statistical computing. We found that students were also interested in epidemiology. So in comparison to our first year, we increased the statistical computing course, excuse me. And so the last two weeks of the summer program they're taking intro to epidemiology. So getting the evaluations in real time, discussing it with students in our individual meetings that we may have with them during the week — that we definitely do have with them during the week — and then having our team of advisory board speak to us. We have a meeting at the end of the summer program discuss what happens, if there's any issues, any positives that we've found, typically more positives than negatives, and taking their advice and applying it to the next upcoming year slash cohort. And we also continue to support students throughout the academic year.
Aman: I'm really impressed with this program. There's so much love, care, and attention put into it, and it's shaping leaders of the future from what I understand of how important this is. So let's leave us with this last question that I have for the two of you. What does biostatistics mean to each of you? If we can share that with us. Y'all run such an amazing program that influences this, so I'm curious, what is the importance of biostatistics to the two of you?
Rebecca: Well, sure, so biostatistics is my life, is my professional life. So I went into statistics after majoring in math as an undergraduate because I realized I didn't wanna be entirely focused on theoretical math. I liked the theory, and statistics is a great field in that you can do both the theory, and you can also do work on applications, and you can work on anything in between, and there is a whole spectrum. And over the years as a statistician, that's exactly what I've done. I've really worked on the very applied side, on the more theoretical side, developing methods. And it's just great fun to me, and I love teaching it, and I love seeing young people excited by it, and helping them find the pathway that works for them.
Aman: Love it.
Vardia: Okay, I'm gonna steal Rebecca's answer, and say same thing, it is my life. I've been here now at GPH within the office of the Department of Biostatistics for four years, February. Wow, timestamp. However, I would say coming from the humanities there are some people who have a in a restrained relationship with statistic, or math or statistics, whatever that is. I actually was a math major when I first entered college. But statistics is everywhere, and we see it, whether it's on the train, whether it's in the pamphlet, whether it's a general magazine, or if you're scrolling through Instagram, it's everywhere. And I think looking at how academics are able to put meaning behind numbers is fairly important. And especially with being able to interpret what's going on. And when you say, when you're looking at a issue that is continuously happening within a community, or within an age group, there's somebody there that can interpret it so you don't feel so alone and confused.
Aman: I love it. Where can people find out more about the program or PQAR?
Vardia: Okay, so our department website, but I'll give the PQAR handle specifically, and I'm sure that you'll write it at the bottom of the screen.
Aman: Yeah, we'll put it in the description.
Vardia: Okay, so that's going to be www.publichealth.nyu.edu/pathways.
Rebecca: And for anybody who doesn't like to remember things there is always Google. And if you Google "NYU PQAR", or "NYU biostatistics", make sure you're at the department, you will find us. And I will also lastly mention that we do have a Twitter handle and follow us on Twitter.
Vardia: So our department handle is NYUGPHBiostats. If you're Googling, make sure you do "NYU GPH Biostats".
Aman: For those of you that don't wanna Google or remember, we will put it all in the description. Thank you so much to the two of you for your time and sharing all the information about this program.
Vardia: Thank you.
Rebecca: Thank you for having us.
Aman: See you in the next one, folks.