I’m a data scientist who is interested in using technology to help other scientists and medical doctors prevent, treat and cure infectious diseases.

But what does that exactly mean? To be a “data” scientist?

As technology surrounds us, so too do data and information. This can be anything from the stuff you write down on notepads or in spreadsheets to large databases or complex numbers coming from sci-fi looking devices.

In the right hands these data can be transformed into a tool that answers all types of interesting questions. With enough data, powerful computers and clever statistics, we can use all these data to try and answer these questions.

The most common questions for data scientists tend to be ones about prediction. I’m particularly interested in whether we can predict what is causing a patient's infection and tell doctors what treatments may work best.

People interested in data usually share a few things in common, and one of those is an interest in computers. I for one have always been a computer nerd! I learnt my first programming language at the age of 15, and I’ve been hacking away at interesting problems ever since.

Data scientists tend to have weird and mixed backgrounds. I definitely fall into this category! I studied Biomedical Science and spent five years working for the NHS helping diagnose infections. But in fact I spent most of this time “playing” with the data given to me, teaching myself new programming languages, building apps to help my colleagues, and answering questions for medical doctors.

Eventually I found a PhD project that combined my love of coding, data science and infectious disease, and I haven’t looked back since!

You can find out more about my work on my GitHub profile.