Student Spotlight: Maria, UCL Institute of Health Informatics PhD

Tell us more about your background

I am a medical doctor specialising in infectious diseases and microbiology registrar and studied medicine at The University of Manchester. Having taken a few years out of training to do some research, I completed the MSc Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology at UCL. I am currently in my final year of a clinical PhD fellowship funded by the Wellcome Trust based at the Institute of Health Informatics. 

Why did you choose to study your programme?

I wanted to learn more about data linkage and using routinely collected datasets for population-level epidemiological research. UCL has world-leading academics in this field who have great links with other institutions, policy-makers, and industry. 

Tell us a bit about the research work you’re doing now.

I helped to set up and run a government-funded national surveillance study of COVID-19 in care homes and my research into COVID-19 epidemiology in care homes has directly informed national policy. 

What have you enjoyed most about your time at UCL so far?

Cross-speciality collaboration and the amazing links across institutes and other organisations. 

What are your future career goals?

I plan to complete my clinical training alongside a post-doctoral research position at UCL. I subsequently hope to gain an intermediate fellowship to fund my future research and establish my own research group. 

What would be your advice to current students?

Speak to as many people as possible about their research before choosing what you want to work on.