How a Meharry School of Applied Computational Sciences data science student turned a summer at the National Institutes of Health into a dissertation, a fellowship and a new pathway for future students.
This past May, Kristen Oguno, a Ph.D. Data Science student at Meharry’s School of Applied Computational Sciences (SACS), drove 9 1/2 hours from Nashville to the Washington, D.C., area. Ahead was a summer internship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It turned into much more.
The move took some getting used to. “Initially, I was hesitant about having to relocate,” Oguno said, “but being physically present at NIH became one of the most valuable parts of the experience.”
By August, the internship had become something bigger. Oguno left with an invitation to continue work with NIH collaborators as a predoctoral fellow and the chance to pilot a partnership no Meharry student had tried before.
Same diagnosis, different experience
From May through August, Oguno worked on a data science and informatics research team within the National Library of Medicine. The project looked at autoimmune disease heterogeneity: why patients who share a diagnosis can experience it in very different ways.
To answer that question, she worked with large-scale, longitudinal electronic health record data from the NIH All of Us Research Program. The work focused on finding clinically meaningful patient subgroups. It looked at treatment patterns, comorbidities, laboratory features and other characteristics that could explain the differences and lead to more actionable research questions.
Leading, not watching
The research group welcomed Oguno and her service animal, Sophia, right away. They also expected contribution from day one. “I was encouraged to contribute rather than simply observe,” she said.
Her principal investigator, Richard Scheuermann, Ph.D, gave Oguno the lead on the All of Us portion of the research because most of the team traditionally worked with other types of biomedical and clinical data. NIH wanted to understand what kinds of analyses and research questions the platform could support.
That meant mastering the All of Us Researcher Workbench and building and refining patient cohorts. She also worked with structured electronic health record (EHR) and OMOP data, a standardized format for health data. She ran statistical and temporal analyses on that data and presented findings back to the group.
Just as important was the access to physicians and researchers with deep expertise in autoimmune disease. Their feedback helped shape cohort definitions, features and the project’s direction. “My work has evolved from simply identifying patterns in the data to determining which patterns are actually clinically meaningful,” Oguno said.
“Au revoir,” not goodbye
At the end of the summer, the team held a farewell gathering. Dr. Scheuermann wrote “au revoir” on the cake instead of “goodbye” next to Oguno and Sophia’s names because, as he explained, he expected to see her again.
He meant it. Based on the summer’s work, he invited Oguno to continue with the group as a predoctoral fellow through the NIH Graduate Partnerships Program. She will remain enrolled as a Meharry doctoral student while conducting a substantial portion of her dissertation research at NIH.
The dissertation will build on the summer’s foundation: longitudinal clinical data, temporal analysis, patient heterogeneity and computational approaches to complex disease. The clinical collaborators from the summer will stay involved, with the goal of producing both a dissertation and publishable research.
The opportunity matters for another reason. The fellowship will provide both financial support and an ideal location for her doctoral work.
Further, Oguno, who worked independently to secure the summer internship, has opened a door for future Meharry students. “I have the opportunity to help pilot what this type of partnership can look like for a Meharry student,” she said, with the hope of building a model for future students.
Advice for future SACS students
Would Oguno recommend the internship to other SACS students? “Absolutely.”
The experience demanded independence, quick learning of unfamiliar data systems, and the ability to explain and defend analytical choices to people from different scientific backgrounds. Those are skills she said are hard to build fully through coursework alone.
Her biggest piece of advice is not to wait for a perfect fit. “Strong computational skills, curiosity and the ability to learn quickly can open doors into areas of research that may initially seem outside of your existing expertise,” she said.
What began as a summer internship gave Oguno stability and direction for the rest of the Ph.D. program. It also built lasting ties with NIH researchers and clinicians. And it gives the SACS students who come next a path to follow.
