Math Colloquium Inspires Howard Student to Improve Cancer Screening

Last fall, Dr. Joseph Hogan, chair of the Brown University biostatistics department, gave a colloquium talk in the Howard mathematics department about his research on HIV treatment in Kenya. Dr. Hogan developed a machine learning model to predict when patients would be likely to miss their appointments, allowing clinicians to reach out to those most at risk of missing their treatments before any lapses. 

One of the audience members for that talk was sophomore biology major Emma Foster. This spring, Emma started an internship at the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Prevention, a nonprofit initiative focused on reducing cancer healthcare disparities in underserved communities, which provides free yearly cancer screenings for uninsured people in Washington, DC. 

Emma realized that the methods employed by Dr. Hogan could also help the Cancer Prevention Center identify patients who were likely to miss their yearly cancer screening. So, working with Dr. Hogan, she developed and implemented a machine learning model for this task. Emma says that her work improving cancer screening via data science is “not something I would have been able to do without attending that colloquium” and that “more non-math majors could definitely benefit from attending” talks in the Howard math department colloquium.

The Howard math department colloquium meets Fridays at 4:10-5:00pm in 213 ASB-B. Starting in Fall 2026, the math department is also launching a new BS in Data Science, which includes a concentration in healthcare analytics.