{"644239":{"#nid":"644239","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Toyya Pujol: A World in Numbers","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.toyya-pujol.com\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EToyya Pujol\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, numbers tell a story.\u0026nbsp;\u0026ldquo;They give\u0026nbsp;a concreteness to\u0026nbsp;people\u0026rsquo;s experience,\u0026rdquo; she noted in a recent interview.\u0026nbsp;An\u0026nbsp;alumna (Ph.D.\u0026nbsp;2020) of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), Pujol has taken this perspective to\u0026nbsp;an assistant professorship at\u0026nbsp;Purdue University,\u0026nbsp;where she will be examining\u0026nbsp;statistical data related to\u0026nbsp;issues\u0026nbsp;of\u0026nbsp;social justice\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;public health.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThis\u0026nbsp;viewpoint\u0026nbsp;has\u0026nbsp;in fact\u0026nbsp;defined Pujol\u0026rsquo;s academic and career choices since she was an undergraduate student at MIT\u0026rsquo;s Sloan School of Management. Most of her peers pursued full-time positions in banking or consulting.\u0026nbsp;However,\u0026nbsp;Pujol\u0026nbsp;declined\u0026nbsp;such\u0026nbsp;job\u0026nbsp;offers after deciding\u0026nbsp;that she was\u0026nbsp;not\u0026nbsp;interested in helping companies make more money. She began bartending in Boston\u0026nbsp;while considering her options.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;You can imagine\u0026nbsp;the complaints of\u0026nbsp;my mother,\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;Pujol\u0026nbsp;said, laughing. \u0026ldquo;After she had\u0026nbsp;just\u0026nbsp;paid\u0026nbsp;for four\u0026nbsp;years of MIT tuition, I was tending bar!\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEventually, Pujol recognized that what she really cared about was\u0026nbsp;channeling her natural talent for numbers\u0026nbsp;to help others\u0026nbsp;\u0026mdash;\u0026nbsp;specifically,\u0026nbsp;using\u0026nbsp;math\u0026nbsp;to describe the world\u0026nbsp;with\u0026nbsp;direct applications to\u0026nbsp;social good problems. She\u0026nbsp;accepted\u0026nbsp;a civilian position with\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;U.S.\u0026nbsp;Air Force as an operations research (OR) analyst, a\u0026nbsp;role\u0026nbsp;she held for six years. Pujol was responsible for using data to\u0026nbsp;develop\u0026nbsp;cost estimates, especially for advanced communications systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd where was the\u0026nbsp;social good\u0026nbsp;factor in that work, you might ask? \u0026ldquo;Everything we did was geared toward saving the warfighter\u0026rsquo;s life,\u0026rdquo; she explained.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEven after Pujol earned her master\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;degree\u0026nbsp;in OR from Northeastern University,\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;itch\u0026nbsp;remained\u0026nbsp;to\u0026nbsp;apply\u0026nbsp;numbers\u0026nbsp;toward\u0026nbsp;improving\u0026nbsp;people\u0026rsquo;s lives, and she enrolled in\u0026nbsp;ISyE\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;Ph.D.\u0026nbsp;program with a concentration\u0026nbsp;in statistics.\u0026nbsp;Her work here has focused on\u0026nbsp;applying\u0026nbsp;data analytics and machine learning to\u0026nbsp;examine\u0026nbsp;health outcomes and ways to provide patients with better treatment.\u0026nbsp;In pursuit of that goal, Pujol joined\u0026nbsp;an interdisciplinary Georgia Tech team that studied\u0026nbsp;biomedical informatics\u0026nbsp;and personalized medicine through a T32 training grant from the National Institutes of Health. She also\u0026nbsp;spent a year at Harvard Medical School\u0026rsquo;s Department of Health Care Policy as a visiting scholar.\u0026nbsp;Harvard\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;interdisciplinary department included\u0026nbsp;medical doctors\u0026nbsp;working\u0026nbsp;alongside\u0026nbsp;biostatisticians and economists\u0026nbsp;to drive health policy decisions;\u0026nbsp;she learned\u0026nbsp;biostatistics,\u0026nbsp;rather than\u0026nbsp;straight\u0026nbsp;engineering\u0026nbsp;statistics,\u0026nbsp;for healthcare research.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThese research opportunities\u0026nbsp;clarified for\u0026nbsp;Pujol\u0026nbsp;where she wanted to land, career-wise,\u0026nbsp;after defending her ISyE thesis. She\u0026nbsp;decided\u0026nbsp;on Purdue\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;industrial\u0026nbsp;engineering\u0026nbsp;department,\u0026nbsp;with a\u0026nbsp;joint\u0026nbsp;affiliation with\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;Regenstrief\u0026nbsp;Center for Healthcare Engineering, where colleagues from many different engineering\u0026nbsp;disciplines have come together to solve major healthcare issues. Pujol also liked the center\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;access to large amounts of data, as well as government connections. This means that she has been able to step right into doing the work she cares\u0026nbsp;about\u0026nbsp;most.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAdditionally,\u0026nbsp;Pujol, recipient of a\u0026nbsp;scholarship through the\u0026nbsp;prestigious\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/sloanphds.org\/mphd.html\u0022\u003ESloan Minority Ph.D. Program\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;sees the ongoing conversation around issues of race and social justice as a way of looking at numbers that significantly impact minority communities:\u0026nbsp;infant\/maternal mortality rates\u0026nbsp;or implicit bias\u0026nbsp;by\u0026nbsp;medical professionals or inadequate access to telehealth, which has become\u0026nbsp;essential\u0026nbsp;during\u0026nbsp;the Covid-19\u0026nbsp;pandemic. She hopes\u0026nbsp;to be\u0026nbsp;in the vanguard addressing concerns that\u0026nbsp;profoundly\u0026nbsp;influence\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;quality of life\u0026nbsp;for entire demographic groups.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;People are starting to see how statistics around these\u0026nbsp;questions\u0026nbsp;represent human stories,\u0026rdquo; Pujol said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026ldquo;This is why the work is important\u0026nbsp;\u0026mdash;\u0026nbsp;no one would know about these issues if no one was looking.\u0026nbsp;You can describe the world through numbers.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThis ISyE Ph.D. alumna uses\u0026nbsp;math\u0026nbsp;for social good.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"This ISyE Ph.D. alumna uses math for social good."}],"uid":"35680","created_gmt":"2021-02-15 15:45:37","changed_gmt":"2021-02-16 17:56:40","author":"ehall46","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2021-02-15T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2021-02-15T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"644303":{"id":"644303","type":"image","title":"Toyya Pujol","body":null,"created":"1613497982","gmt_created":"2021-02-16 17:53:02","changed":"1613497982","gmt_changed":"2021-02-16 17:53:02","alt":"Toyya Pujol","file":{"fid":"244615","name":"TP.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/TP.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/TP.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":30695,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/TP.jpg?itok=4GjyNf_f"}}},"media_ids":["644303"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/news\/isye-phd-student-toyya-pujol-awarded-sloan-foundation-scholarship","title":"ISyE Ph.D. Student Toyya Pujol Awarded Sloan Foundation Scholarship"}],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"}],"keywords":[{"id":"179797","name":"Toyya Pujol"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"},{"id":"1096","name":"Ph.D."},{"id":"187046","name":"Sloan Minority Scholarship"},{"id":"169007","name":"social good"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39511","name":"Public Service, Leadership, and Policy"},{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:swundersmith3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EShelley Wunder-Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}