Inspiring Grads: Health Sci 3

Florence Phelanyane

Job history

2016-Present Health Data Scientist Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research

2013–2015 IsiXhosa Language Tutor University of Cape Town

Academic history

2022–Present PhD in Computational and Health Informatics University of Cape Town

2021 Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics University of Cape Town

2015 BSc Med Honours in Bioinformatics University of Cape Town

2014 BSc Genetics and Microbiology University of Cape Town

Describe your job – what do you do?

I am a Health Data Scientist seconded to the Western Cape Department of Health’s (WCGH) Provincial Health Data Centre (PHDC). The PHDC is a health information exchange developed and hosted within the WCGH. It integrates and harmonises public health data at scale.

I get to combine my public health background and computational/ analytical skills to solve health care problems at scale. I am privileged to use my diverse skills to be part of a team that uses data driven tools for strengthening public health systems, and in turn ‘save lives’.

How have your degrees helped you to get where you are?

I am a self-taught data scientist in that I do not have formal training in computer science/statistics/ maths; I took Information Technology (IT) as a subject in matric and picked it up again at university when I switched from molecular biology to computational biology (bioinformatics).

I started working as a health data scientist during my masters. The epidemiology and biostats coursework, invaluable experience gained working alongside public health experts/fellow health data scientists, and the completion of various data science certificates helped me to become the data scientist I am today.

What’s been a highlight of your career so far?

Working for an academic institution like UCT, and its research nurturing environment, allows you to both work and study simultaneously. I managed to submit a few proposals to various prestigious conferences. One such conference was AIDS2020, during which I presented my masters thesis on a contemporary review of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV 20 years after its inception.