In our interview, Jewel Lee talked to us about her role as a software engineer in the Hadlock lab. Jewel explained her background in seismology and machine learning before she joined biological research. Her job includes cleaning data and using machine learning to analyze data. She explained how she is currently working with electronic health records and getting to know the data is a really important step of the process. She believes that electronic health records and a standardized format can greatly benefit the healthcare system. Jewel likes working at ISB because she has control over her projects and has the flexibility to do what she wants.
Some challenges Jewel faces include cleaning out data features and converting data into standardized units, which can be time consuming processes. One of her favorite projects was working on creating a model to predict sepsis. This model can save patients and hospitals a lot of money. Coming from a non-biology background, Jewel enjoys learning about new biological concepts for her projects. Jewel provided us with insight on the growing field of computational biology and the transition between different fields of science.
Quotes:
“A software engineer can play an important role in any kind of industry”
“Any data can be big data, so you are always thinking at a systems level”
Link to Profile: https://hadlock.isbscience.org/bio/jewel-lee/