Elizabeth Rosen (CDS’25)
About
When Elizabeth Rosen came to Boston University from her North Shore home, she was absolutely certain what she intended to study. After all, it was the subject that she’d loved since she was around age 12.“I came to BU as a biology major; I wanted to go into infectious disease research,” Rosen (CDS’25) says.
Then she took a course in BU’s new Computing & Data Sciences program, DS-100, the Data Speak Louder Than Words introductory class, and she loved it. “It was my favorite class I have taken,” she says.
The course, she says, not only provided her with a strong introduction to using the Python programming language, but it forced her to think about data from a data science perspective. “I really like using my brain to solve puzzles,” she says. “I didn’t get to do that in biology or chemistry.”
It wasn’t just reading and lectures, but she was coding right along with the professor. When she did get to spend time in a lab doing research into Alzheimer’s disease, she discovered she didn’t love the hands-on lab experience, but she did relish the data analysis that came with it.
“I really wanted to focus on the computational side of things, and I hope to use data science in some form of public health,” Rosen says. “I love the intersection of health sciences and programming. Especially now that COVID has shown us how big it can be, and how we could foresee another COVID event happening. I want to be part of that solution.”
One day, she says, she could imagine herself working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or World Health Organization, in pursuit of public health solutions.“It never occurred to me that data science could be like this for me,” Rosen says. “I had wanted to do biology since I was 12. I always wanted to help people. But COVID really interrupted my high school experience. I saw how it impacted different people, including my father. I never really saw myself in data science or computer science. But I really do like being at a computer, where I can implement my interests in life sciences on a bigger scale to help people. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”
As for her childhood dream? She hasn’t completely abandoned it. She is still minoring in biology, while majoring in data science.