McGill Global Health Scholar Maahir Shah is a Biological, Biomedical & Life Sciences student and a McGill Global Health Scholar supported by the John Locke Churchill Scholars Award. This past summer, Maahir worked with Dr. Raja Sengupta on the Integration of Population-based Cohorts into Synthetic Ecosystem Digital Convergence Platform.
"Under the supervision of Dr. Sengupta, I am working on the Synthetic Ecosystem, a digital platform that is being developed to integrate datasets from multiple disciplines (food, healthcare, population cohorts, etc.) into a single convergent platform to help public health researchers examine the impact of public health interventions on the population of Montreal.
Currently, I am using python programming to analyze and process various datasets and integrate data from population cohort studies into a synthetically generated population of Montreal. I am also using Data Analytics tools such as Tableau and Power BI to develop interactive dashboards that integrate and display all this data in a user-friendly manner. These dashboards would allow a user to understand all aspects of the physical and social environment that impact the health and wellbeing of individuals in Montreal.
I think the most interesting aspect of the internship is understanding the complexity that underlies multi-disciplinary research and research in global health. When conducting research, you tend to focus on one particular field of study, but since we live in an intertwined, complex world, it is important to understand all aspects of the situation and look at a problem holistically, to be able to find unique solutions. Working on this project has helped me understand this, and encouraged me to always find new perspectives when
dealing with problems in global health."
Learn more about the McGill Global Health Scholars Undergraduate Program.
