Sarah Holte is a staff scientist in the Public Health Science division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. The division’s primary areas of research are biostatistics, cancer biology, cancer prevention research and epidemiology. Sarah’s research is in the area of HIV prevention and acute infection, including the development and analysis of mathematical models of HIV and the immune system.
“My job has two main components,” she explains. “One is to work with other scientists including medical doctors to plan studies and analyze data pertaining to HIV prevention and acute infection. Generally I work with a team that involves principle investigators (PI's), programmers, data base managers, and people who develop and implement protocols. My contribution involves many things, primarily advice on study design and analysis of data. My office is at the statistical coordinating center for multi-site trials of HIV prevention and acute infection. I work mainly with other statisticians and programmers, and interact with the investigators remotely, by e-mail or phone.”
“In addition, I'm also involved in a project to develop and analyze mathematical models of HIV and the immune system and in development of methodologies to estimate parameters in these models. We work mainly with models based on ordinary differential equations, which we use to assist with design of experiments and parameter estimation. The main mathematical areas I use are theory and analysis of dynamical properties of ordinary differential equations, numerical analysis, and statistics.”
Sarah has a B.A in mathematics from the University of Minnesota and an M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Oregon, where she did research in topology and topological dynamics. She originally held a tenure track faculty appointment at the University of Missouri-Rolla, but left that position because of her desire to work in a more applied setting and collaborate with scientists who were not mathematicians. She joined the Fred Hutchinson Center in 1993 as a “training” post-doc in biostatistics, a position she found advertised in the professional journal of the American Statistical Association. After one and a half years she was offered a position as a staff scientist, and worked with a group that was interested in genetics and their role in the etiology of cancer.”
“Two main factors contributed to my desire to a seek a job in public health science,” Sarah explains. “The first was a desire to work on applied and relevant problems in health science. One thing I enjoy most about my job is contributing as part of multi-disciplinary team of researchers. The second was that I felt isolated as the only women in a mathematics department at an engineering university. I find my non-academic appointment much more comfortable than my academic appointment was. I work with lots of women in very important positions in a variety of scientific fields, which was not the case when I was a faculty member in a mathematics department.”
She finds her most valuable mathematics courses to be numerical analysis, statistics, and linear algebra. She also uses her background in ordinary differential equations and non-linear dynamics. A knowledge of programming and epidemiolgy and biology are also very useful.
“To find a position,” she says, “look for post-docs or internships in other areas. Read the professional journals in the area you'd like to work in. This should be easy since most must be on the web now. I had a variety of organizations send me their literature.”
“Once you land a position be ready to solve problems in any way. Often the simplest mathematical solution is the best. You may know all sorts of fancy stuff, but I've found that starting simple is a very good approach. Also, don't be afraid to ‘sell yourself’ - i.e. promote you abilities and interests. Be honest about your experience but never apologize for lack of experience or ability. Confidence is very important.”
Sarah also has a homepage.
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