Barbara Draghi, Data Science “Dream big and never lose your curiosity”
Published 8 March 2023
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Written by Barbara Draghi, Research Applications Developer - Health Data Science Team at MHRA
Ada Lovelace was the world’s first computer programmer. When she began algorithm development back in the mid-nineteenth century, the first computer - Charles Babbage’s mechanical ‘Analytic Engine’ - was still unfinished. Lovelace was the first person to recognise the full potential of a ‘computing machine’. Ada’s story taught me that when it comes to a career in STEM, always dream big.
The best thing about working in STEM is that everything evolves so quickly that you can always study and discover new things. My advice to young girls aspiring to a career in STEM is to never lose your curiosity - the key is to never stop learning and improving.
I’ve always been keen on making the best use of my skills so I could do something that matters, something that would help other people. I discovered my passion for computer programming when I was a teenager, and I decided I wanted to improve my skills. Then I decided to put them to good use with a job in healthcare.
After graduating in Biomedical Engineering in 2020, I started working as a Data Scientist at Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - a research service supporting retrospective and prospective public health and clinical studies. Whilst I was there, my work mainly focused on the synthetic data project. I also did a lot of research and development for new methodologies for dealing with data bias within healthcare data. This led to the publication of a research paper.
In July 2021, I started working as a Research Applications Developer at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and now my job is more focused on extracting, loading and processing data. In the last year, I’ve been working on developing research data science methods for healthcare applications. I’m proud of having published a paper containing my research and of being part of the development of a web-based tool.
Basically, a day in my role means spending several hours coding, which is something I love.
One of my proudest achievements in my career is obtaining a permanent contract in a country which is not my native one, which also means working in a language which is not my native one. I also feel proud to be involved in multiple projects and learning new skills, all of which allows me to solve the challenges I face every day.
If you enjoy learning new things and you’re always curious, then a job in STEM might just be for you too. And remember to always dream big.