As part of a five-year NIAID R25 research education grant to deliver training in quantitative methods for HIV/AIDS research, the Quantitative Methods for HIV Researchers Summer Internship program provides mentoring and research experiences in HIV/AIDS for Masters or PhD students from quantitative disciplines such as statistics, biostatistics, data science, mathematics, computer science, and engineering. The internship runs for 12 weeks and is designed to engage quantitative trainees in real-world HIV/AIDS research, providing the opportunity to conduct research in leading HIV/AIDS laboratories, co-mentored by both an HIV/AIDS researcher and quantitative science faculty. This summer, ten interns were paired with Duke CFAR PIs and Quantitative Mentors to support an ongoing research project.
We asked interns to share their experiences and reflect on the summer.
Oluwatobi Lucas Akinbode
Program: Data Science and Statistics at North Carolina A&T State University
PIs & Quantitative Mentor: Lauren Howard, Jan Ostermann, and Nathan Thielman
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
My project focuses on the question "If non-HIV risk factor can be used as a proxy measure of HIV risk”. I utilized network analysis to check the relationship/edges among nodes/variables by group of risk factors, to determine if they are strongly correlated with the group of HIV risk or not.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
To enhance my knowledge on HIV research and improve my programming skills.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to work as a research scientist on research focused on HIV and other infectious diseases.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
When we presented our project and we were able to ask questions and the food was so nice.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
This summer expanded my knowledge on reproducibility, writing of codes, gits and how to arrange my codes before presenting. It also built my confidence about presenting in the United States as an international student.
Emily Brennan
Program: Masters in Geospatial Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Nrupen Bhavsar and Tyler Schappe
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
Utilize immunological labs (neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio) from complete blood count reports to determine how people living with HIV/AIDS are affected by climate change, social determinants of health, and chronic inflammation.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
To become more confident in myself as a researcher, develop presentation skills, learn as much as I could about statistics, and experience biostatistics to see if I wanted to pursue it further.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to complete a PhD program, possibly in public health.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
Learning a ton about R programming and becoming more confident in my abilities.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
That it’s a little bit closer to Halloween.
Ashley Howard
Program: Master of Biostatistics student at Duke
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Thuy Le and Lynn Lin
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
My project aimed to develop a predictive model to identify patients at the highest risk of opportunistic infection with fungal or mycobacterial disease in Vietnam. I compared six different machine learning models to identify an optimal model that could reduce screening expenditures and mortality in people with advanced HIV disease.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My training goals coming into the summer program were to gain a clinical understanding of HIV/AIDS, develop proficiency in a range of machine learning algorithms and understand their application in predictive modeling.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to work as a biostatistician, not sure what industry yet.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
My favorite part of the summer internship was hearing from the guest speakers about their experience and work with HIV/AIDS.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
My favorite thing about summer is the warm weather and having a break from classes.
Tsz Yeuk Hui
Program: Master of Biostatistics/Duke University
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Dirk Davis and Janice McCarthy
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
My project is to analyze the relationship between childhood sexual abuse experience, mental health variables and PrEP outcome variables among Indigenous sexual minority groups in Guatemala.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My goal is to have some hands-on experience on analyzing real data by using R or other programming languages.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to work as a Biostatistician and contribute to public health and clinical trial studies.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
My favorite part of this summer internship is meeting people with a diverse background and sharing our projects to one another.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
Able to do many things at once, such as working, learning, shopping, and traveling.
Yi Liu
Program: PhD student, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Tonia Poteat and Janice McCarthy
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
Exploring social determinants of HIV status and viral load suppression among transgender women in South Africa, using quantitative methods and sample survey data.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
Being trained as a future statistician, I was extremely interested in seeing how statistical models and methodology are applied in practice and what their real impact is.
What do you hope to do in the future?
After this summer internship, I became very interested in HIV/AIDS research. I will seek more future opportunities related to HIV/AIDS epidemiological study and clinical trials where my statistical expertise can be applied to.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
Meeting and brainstorming with PI and mentors.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
Hiking and socializing with friends and people in this program.
Bhavana C. Morankar
Program: NCSU Dept. of Biomathematics
PI & Quantitative Mentor: David Katz and Cliburn Chan
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
I worked with Dr. Katz on mathematically modeling drug delivery for anti-HIV drugs. We simulated long-term PrEP use via intravaginal delivery devices as an alternative to short-term oral PrEP.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My training goals this summer were to become more familiar with building computational models, be involved with meaningful research, and learn how to present my work to an audience of peers and mentors.
What do you hope to do in the future?
In the future, I hope to use my research from this summer as a stepping stone towards developing a comprehensive toolbox for using mathematical models to solve current problems in Biology.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with my PI to talk about the biological, clinical and mathematical aspects of HIV/AIDs research. I also liked learning about the other interns’ work during our weekly presentations.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
Eating copious amounts of ice cream, going to the beach!
Minh Anh To
Program: Master’s in Statistical Science (MSS), Duke University
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Justin Pollara, Pixu Shi, and Paul Cray
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
My project focuses on improving the efficiency of antibody production for HIV treatment using machine learning. I engineered features from mRNA sequences and developed predictive models to identify key factors that influence protein yield, aiming to make antibody production faster and more cost-effective.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My goal was to enhance my research skills and apply the theoretical knowledge I gained in machine learning and statistical methods to a practical problem, particularly in the field of computational biology.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I aim to become a skilled data scientist or machine learning engineer, utilizing a broad range of quantitative techniques and expertise to solve real-world problems.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
My favorite part of the summer internship was gaining valuable technical skills with the incredible support of my mentors and PI. The working environment was both enjoyable and encouraging, allowing me to explore and research topics I’m passionate about.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
Enjoying my hobbies without having to worry about deadlines!
Mutiyat Usman
Program: Master's degree in Applied Mathematics with concentration in Statistics and Data Science, North Carolina A&T State University
PI & Quantitative Mentors: Dorothy Dow, John Gallis, and Liz Turner
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
I fitted both GEE and mixed models to the longitudinal data from the SYV [Sauti ya Vijana, mental health intervention for youth in Tanzania] individually randomized group treatment (IRGT) trial with simulated arm data. I adapted R code from the geeCRT package to implement MAEE to estimate correlation parameters in the case of IRGT data analyzed at a single time point. I also compared the performance of the log-poisson GEE models to the associated MAEE models by examining the estimated standard errors of the intervention effect
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
I was trying to get into the clinical areas of statistics and performing analysis on raw dataset which is coming directly from research/survey.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I intend to explore the clinical areas of statistics more as part of my discovered research interest. I intend to apply for a PhD program in Biostatistics and concentrate in the clinical area of statistics.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
I love our lecture time, meeting with my other interns, having lunch together with everyone and asking questions.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
Learning and doing something new. I had no prior knowledge on the methodology that I used but I was intentional about learning and the result was great.
Krissie Wilson
Program: Master’s of Biostatistics program at Duke University
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Sweta Patel and Joshua Granek
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
My project focuses on evaluating the characteristics of the nasopharyngeal microbiome in adult women living with HIV in Botswana, the microbiome plays a crucial role in resisting colonization by respiratory pathogens. By understanding these characteristics, we aim to identify potential risk factors for respiratory infections.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My primary goal was to gain experience with genetic sequencing data while collaborating with a PI and quantitative mentor on bioinformatic applications in real-world research, particularly focusing on people living with HIV. I've always been interested in genetics, but I wanted to gain hands-on experience with this type of data to determine if it's the right path for my career.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I’ve really enjoyed my internship experience this summer, and I’m eager to continue working with genetic sequencing data in my career. In the future, I hope to enhance my skills in bioinformatics and biostatistics to contribute to improved health outcomes.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
My favorite part of the summer internship was learning new bioinformatics and biostatistics techniques and applications. I also really enjoyed the guest lectures, hearing about their experiences, and learning from them.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
My favorite thing about summer is going to visit with family and friends.
Wei Zhao
Program: PhD Candidate, Department of Statistics, NC State University
PI & Quantitative Mentor: Marta Mulawa and Richard Barfield
What was the project you worked on for your internship?
I developed methods to assess the impact of the HealthMpowerment 2.0 mobile app on the mental health of individuals living with HIV.
What were your training goals coming into the summer program?
My goal was to gain experience collaborating with scientists from diverse fields on cutting-edge, real-world research projects, while honing my skills in communication, teamwork, and leadership as a collaborative statistician.
What do you hope to do in the future?
I hope to apply my skills as a statistician to drive impactful research that address real-world challenges, particularly in public health.
What was your favorite part of the summer internship?
The opportunity to collaborate with HIV research scientists and receive training as a collaborative quantitative researcher.
What is your favorite thing about summer?
The freedom and flexibility to explore my non-academic interests such as traveling, cooking, and camping while continuing my research.