Barts Health helps improve representation of black people in science through collaborative internship programme

Barts Health has joined a new programme designed to help get more black men and women into the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) community.

Together with Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and in partnership with the 10,000 Black Interns initiative and the UK Health Data Research Alliance (HDR Alliance), a total of 54 interns, including over 30 women will start paid work experience as they work at 25 of HDR UK’s partner organisations, starting in summer 2021.

Barts Health will bring one of these interns on board to work with the Trust going forward.

They will spend their first month understanding the complex data ecosystem at Barts Health by meeting clinicians as well as data warehouse, clinical informatics and analyst teams to see how data is collected on the wards and in our offices.

The intern will learn about data processing for research projects and be trained in some cutting-edge data science tools, including natural language processing.

In the final weeks of their role, they will have their own Covid-19 related project to lead on and will utilise data science techniques they have learned over the course of their internship in this project.

Sophie Williams PHD, Research Data Scientist at Barts Health, said: “I’m thrilled that Barts Health are involved in this internship programme, which aligns with our wider WeBelong inclusion programme. I look forward to working with our intern to better understand disease and support care of our patients using data science.”