Kiesha

As an undergraduate at NUS, I interned at the NUS School of Public Health. It was an eye-opening experience to be able to apply the theoretical skills I learned as a Statistics major to real-world public health problems. I then pursued a junior research position at the School of Public Health, which exposed me to exciting research questions and techniques. My research interests grew, so I felt the PhD was a natural step forward.

The reputation of the university is important; NUS is among the top-ranking universities in the world. I was interested in the research topic offered at the school. Furthermore, funding availability and the professional relationship I built with the academic staff at the School of Public Health were the primary deciding factors.

While in graduate school, there were more opportunities for self-directed learning and independent work. I am interested in solving real-world problems in health; hence I was mentally more engaged during graduate school than in my undergraduate studies. Moreover, during my graduate studies, I could network with other health professionals who were also reading their Master of Public Health or were close collaborators of the School of Public Health.

As an infectious disease modeller, my research interests involve building computational models to understand the population impact and cost-effectiveness of interventions against infectious diseases. I have led the development and updates of the global age- and location-specific contact synthetic contact matrices for contact-transmissible infections.

My research focuses on understanding and predicting the epidemiology of infectious diseases so that more effective and cost-effective control programmes can be devised. I hope my research will enable policy-makers to make evidence-informed decisions in health.

As a postgraduate student at NUS School of Public Health, I was awarded the Singapore Infectious Diseases Initiative Travel Fellowship in 2018, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health Class Ambassador in 2018 and Graduate Student Researcher Award in 2019. I have been invited to share my work at international conferences (e.g., Epidemics and International Papillomavirus Conferences), panel discussions (including one organised by the Asian Development Bank) and public forum discussions. I have also presented my work to the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the United Kingdom’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation sub-committee.
These engagements have allowed me to communicate directly with key decision makers such as the WHO and national immunisation technical advisory groups. I learned about these opportunities from the faculty and collaborators of the NUS School of Public Health. It is with their support that I have been successful in these endeavours. The COVID-19 pandemic has pressured me (as well as my colleagues working on infectious disease epidemiology) to support time-sensitive operational research that has a significant public health impact. Although I was overwhelmed, I recognised that the COVID-19 pandemic provided me with an opportunity to develop my research portfolio and establish myself as an internationally recognised infectious disease modeller.