PCCI introduces its 2024 class of Sachs Summer Scholars Interns

PCCI introduces its 2024 class of Sachs Summer Scholars Interns

STEM focused program sets female students side-by-side with AI experts, data scientists and clinicians

PCCI’s summer intern program, Sachs Summer Scholars, Advancing Women in STEM and Technology Summer Internship, has begun, demonstrating PCCI’s ongoing commitment to improving gender diversity in the data science and technology industry. This program has become the one of the premier internship in North Texas that immerses students in meaningful, real word projects with actual impact. This includes providing each intern direct experience with innovative healthcare, groundbreaking artificial intelligence programs and social determinants of health projects. The aim is to support and promote practical applications of analytics, computing, and data science all while advancing the spirit of mentorship and advancement of female students.

The 2024 class of Sachs Summer Scholars includes seven women from diverse backgrounds, hailing from six different universities. Working side-by-side with PCCI clinical and data science experts to hone their programming and analytics skills while building life-long memories of meaningful accomplishments, the interns will work on core projects at PCCI including: disease surveillance systems, brain care predictive modeling, suicide risk screening, jail health and pediatric asthma risk prediction, to name a few.

This class will present findings based on their work with PCCI at a presentation on August 9th, at Pegasus Park.

The interns are, from left to right: Ozgur Aksoy, University of Texas – Dallas; Serap Ogut, Southern Methodist University; Autumn Carey Noon, Ohio State University; Bengisu Yarimbas, University of North Texas; Emily Thompson, Southern Methodist University; Ferona Bustani, University of Texas – Austin; Saniah Safat, University of Texas – Austin.

DISD Students Share Mobile App “Klinik” with PCCI

Students Recognized for Innovation

Recently, PCCI had the opportunity to welcome students from two Dallas ISD schools– Townview Science and Engineering Magnet and Emmett J. Conrad High School. This group of students are finalists in the Lenovo MIT App Developer Competition and have been invited to Washington D.C where they will be recognized in an awards ceremony for their innovative app aimed at addressing social and health needs in their communities.

A Different Type of App

Nine Dallas ISD students were given the opportunity to design an app for a competition. While most kids would opt for creating a gaming app or the next social media hit, these students took a different approach. Two-thirds of their classmates come from economically disadvantaged families, and many of their friends, neighbors, and family members have little access to food or healthcare resources. Deeply rooted in their passion for helping their community, they decided to develop “Klinik” an app that could enable them to address these immediate needs.

What is Klinik?

“Klinik” is a mobile app that provides users with crucial information on how to get access to basic resources such as food, healthcare, and shelter. The team of prepared and articulate students shared their project with PCCI innovators, spurring conversation around various aspects of app development. By brainstorming effectively, canvassing their communities to create a database of resources, and having potential users provide feedback on the design during development, these students were able to create an app with a sophisticated design and scope mirroring methods seen in well-established companies.

Learning how to compile accurate community resource inventories that enable those who need them according to their preferences is an active area of research in the field and a strong focus for PCCI. The students having developed the basic app are assessing how it can be scaled for broader use across geographies.

PCCI Strategizes with DISD Students

PCCI will strategize with DISD Academy programs and NAF Future Read Lab to create opportunities for collaboration and learning during innovation cycles and to extend the applicability of initiatives. We think that these students and their peers have the potential to work closely with PCCI through worksite tours, internships and a variety of other NAF sponsored activities.

Their work was sponsored by the Lenovo App Inventor program. Lenovo Scholars provides STEM education through NAF academies in the U.S. in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to enable the next generation of app developers.

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