Features

Degree: Master’s in data science

Data science area of concentration: Health care

Hometown: Evanston, Illinois

Wherever you turn, data science is there, says Tiffany Sinclair ’15, who this spring is completing her master’s degree in data science.

“It really is in every field,” she says. “We’ve collected so much information over the decades, and now we finally have the ability to do something with it.”

For Sinclair, that something is contributing to public health. Her goal is to become a data analyst in a health-related position, and she plans to find opportunities to travel and examine how health care works in different countries.

The master’s program concentrates on methods, she says, teaching students how to glean useful information from data and how to apply those skills in different areas.

Sinclair says she’s always loved problem-solving and sorting through information to find meaning and draw conclusions. Studying data science has only sharpened those skills.

“It’s a lot of fun—and challenging, not having come from a computer science background,” says Sinclair, who as an undergraduate was a biology major and favored the pharmaceutical and analytical aspects of biology.

She says her favorite feature of the program is that while the basic concepts stay the same, each class comes at them “from a different angle.”

And it’s exciting to be part of a brand-new field. “I have a sense of knowing so much—and of not knowing anything at all, because everything is still being studied,” she says. “There’s a sense that the field is really alive, and that you can drive it forward.”